


If You Give a Former Assassin a Place to Sleep

by Tonight_At_Noon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky the Sensitive Reformed Bad Guy, Comfort, Darcy the Journalist, Eventual Romance, F/M, Washington D.C., also, it's Darcy, so it will hopefully be funny, some good ol' fashioned fugitive harbouring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-22 05:31:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10690746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonight_At_Noon/pseuds/Tonight_At_Noon
Summary: Darcy Lewis sees him going up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial. She follows him.





	1. Catch Me If You Can

**Author's Note:**

> No, I have not given up on Coffee Shop Girl. I am writing the next chapter. Life has literally been hell these past few weeks. I have not had time nor motivation to write. Then, this morning, I came up with this idea and now here we are. 
> 
> Set between Winter Soldier and Civil War. Chapters won't be too long. There will be lots of changes to canon. Sorry. But this was fun to write, so I'm not all that sorry. 
> 
> It will be choppy, as I haven't written in a while. But hopefully you'll give it a chance!
> 
> Thanks for reading and please, above all else, enjoy!

She has the strangest suspicion he isn't supposed to be there. It's something in his gait. Like he's got pins and needles. Or like he's desperate for the toilet. He moves up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial as though his bladder is moments from imploding. She has done her best to stay away from danger these past few years, but this man, hiding his face beneath a baseball cap, arms covered in a red hoodie despite the almost 100 degree weather, is just begging to be followed.

"Hey, where are you going?"

Darcy Lewis stops dead in her tracks. She had forgotten about Rob. All of her attention has been sucked up by the mystery man with the tattered backpack. Closing her eyes for a second as she searches for a good—it doesn't have to be good, but she has to say something—excuse, Darcy twists in her uncomfortable heels and smiles apologetically at her lunch date.

"Lincoln Memorial," she says, throwing her thumb behind her shoulder. Rob frowns. She's never seen him look so confused before. She hasn't known him for long, though, so perhaps that isn't saying much. Darcy scrambles for something else to say. "I just remembered that I need to go pay my respects to good ol’ Honest Abe."

Rob holds that confused look. His dark eyes squint at her in the DC sunlight. Then, his face relaxes. He starts to stand. "I'll go with you!"

"No!" Darcy exclaims. The confusion returns. "I mean," she laughs pathetically, pressing her finger into Rob's hard chest, "you need to stay here and guard my food. These pigeons are bastards."

"We could just bring the food with us."

"No, Rob. I need to do this by myself," she says, jaw clenched.

Finally, Rob takes the cue and sits down like a good boy. He tucks his press badge between the buttons of his shirt and smiles sweetly at her.

What a buffoon.

Darcy shoots finger guns at him—why, she will never understand—and retreats from the Reflecting Pool, wishing that she had disobeyed her boss's orders to start wearing high heels. They are the single most uncomfortable invention of all time and they are hardly discreet. Her shoes click and clack as she makes her way to the steps leading up to the Memorial. There are men and women dressed in business attire scattered around the steps, piles of food in their laps. Sprinkles of tourists are spread out. Cameras are poised to take mediocre pictures. Darcy hears shutters go off as she weaves between politicians and their mistresses on lunch breaks.

As she nears the top, Darcy fears the man has already gone. She spent far too long trying to convince Rob to stay by the water. This guy is potentially just a harmless tourist, but the longer she sat debating following him, the longer it took her to get up here, the stronger that sense of unease inside of her became.

Whoever this person is, he is dangerous.

Where are the Avengers when you need them?

Sweat rises on her skin as Darcy enters the Lincoln Memorial. It's practically empty inside. Five people tops, and they look to be related. Her shoes echo through the open building, causing those inside to stare at her. All except one.

His backpack is hanging off one shoulder; the zip is open maybe one inch.

Darcy's heart pounds. Blood rushes in her ears, cancelling out the sounds her heels make as she walks slowly towards her mystery man. Eyeing the family of tourists, she jerks her head to the exit. They must see the desperation in her eyes, for it takes only one moment before they retreat from the marble room.

She continues her trek in the direction of Lincoln. Mystery Man is looking up at the words carved atop Lincoln's head in large, capital letters. "In this temple as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever." She sees spikes of hair sticking out beneath his baseball cap. She also notices how terribly rigid he has become since she started her surveillance.

She's been caught. Not that it would have been difficult. These damn shoes gave her away.

Darcy can't swallow. Her throat is too tight. Fear has replaced the false sense of bravery inside each of her cells. She quakes in her knock off Christian Louboutins.

And then he turns around, slowly, like some big cat who has fooled its prey into thinking it's harmless, and Darcy quickly - in a split second - realises her big mistake.

This is no potential terrorist. No gangbanger. Not even some kid dope dealer.

She saw those files while she was still working for Jane. She shouldn't have. She was told strictly not to look at them. But she saw them anyway.

The Winter Soldier.

Darcy gasps through the sliver that has become her throat. She takes one rickety step back, her heel catching in a groove in the flooring. She begins a tumble to the ground, but her harsh landing never comes. A metal arm wraps around her waist to stop her from falling. She feels every mechanical movement against her as though neither of them is wearing any clothes.

Peeking up through her lashes, Darcy sees the face of her rescuer. She can taste her heart as she focuses on every small detail. His skin is pale, probably due to the long sleeves and pants. Pinpricks of hair coat his jaw. It's been a few days since his last shave. There's a deep dimple in his chin.

Then she gets to his eyes. Tired. Sunken. He looks as though he is a hundred years old. Which, Darcy reasons, he is.

Still, he is handsome. Much more handsome than he should be.

Their bodies are pressed against each other. She can feel his breath washing over her. An involuntary shiver runs down her spine.

It is then she remembers who he is. Her eyes widen and she clutches his shoulders, trying to pull herself into an upright position. But, of course, she can't move.

Darcy blows a wisp of hair off of her lips. "Let go of me," she commands.

The Winter Soldier's face hardens. It seems he forgot who he was as well. "Why are you following me."

It is not a question.

"Are you kidding me?"

His features do not change. Not a joke, then.

"You're so obvious," she says. "I spotted you a mile off."

"How did you know who I was? Who do you work for?" His grip tightens around her waist. This was a bad idea.

Darcy glares at the ancient assassin. "I don't work for anybody”—

—“Liar!" He snarls. He is the human embodiment of Scar from _The Lion King_. She sees it clear as day now. "Tell me who you work for."

" _The Washington Post_! I'm a reporter for the _Washington Post_. And I didn't know who you were when I followed you in here. I only knew how obviously abnormal you looked," Darcy spits.

The Winter Soldier's face crumples in anger. "But you know who I am," he says, sounding almost desperate. "How do you know who I am if you're just some journalist!"

Darcy truly feels like she's entered onto the set of some movie she isn't meant to be in.

She should have left well enough alone and continued her lunch date with Rob.

"How?" he asks again. He's going to break her ribs if he keeps this up.

"I used to work with SHIELD!" she reveals.

His entire face widens. He releases her immediately and backs away. Thankfully, she manages to stumble into an upright position.

He doesn't look so tough now. Instead of Scar, he has become Simba, watching as his father gets trampled by wildebeests. Shock and fear paint his face.

"It wasn't really voluntarily," she explains when it looks as though he might bolt. He eyes her confusedly. "My work with SHIELD. It was more accidental. I interned for an astrophysicist and she got hired by them when Thor fell out of the sky. You've met Thor, haven't you? I had no choice but to follow. I'm not some savvy secret agent sent to kill you."

His body is tense again. If he were a turtle, Darcy knows full well he would be buried within his shell.

"You're not scared anymore," he points out.

"Yeah, well you pissed me off."

It happens so fast, Darcy almost doesn't catch it. But it's there. Just for a moment. A smile.

What is this? Isn't he supposed to have snapped her neck and thrown into the Reflecting Pool by now? From what she read in the reports, she assumed he would be armed and dangerous (no pun indented). It had been years since his face off with the Cap. Where was his master plan to blow up Washington DC and skin Captain America alive?

Why was he hanging out in memorials, rescuing clumsy idiots?

"That serum they injected into you," Darcy says. She steps closer to him. Her shoes echo in the room. "You're fighting it, yeah?"

He's shrinking again into his shell. It's almost as if he is afraid of her. This is a twist she never could have seen coming.

She's had it wrong. He isn't Scar. Nor is he Simba. He is Mufasa, falling from the rocks, betrayed by his own brother. There is fear in his eyes. It's diluted amongst the bravado and will to survive, but she can sense it. There is no mission to wreak havoc. There is just a man trying to prove to himself that he is better. That he can push through the deep-rooted compulsion to destroy and make it in this world by himself.

“It’s hard”— he begins, but clambering footsteps distract him.

Darcy looks towards the Memorial’s entrance. Shit. It’s Rob. Better yet, it’s Panting Rob, running through the columns and up to her. The Winter Soldier turns away.

“Darcy!” he heaves. “We’re late. I tried calling you, but you wouldn’t answer your phone.”

“I left my phone with you,” she says.

Rob straightens, a pinkish glow forming around his cheeks. He reaches inside his shirt pocket and returns her cell.

“Oh. Still, we need to get to the Capitol.” Rob holds out his hand for her. Sweet Rob.

Darcy looks between her coworker and the man standing at number one on SHIELD’s Most Wanted list.

Does she really have a choice?

“I can’t make it,” she says, watching the Winter Soldier’s head jerk. She can’t see his face, but she assumes he looks puzzled. “I have a roast sitting in my crockpot at home and if I don’t get to it now, it will burn down my apartment. You go ahead. Make up some excuse for me.”

Shooing Rob along, Darcy waits for the bumbling journalist to get halfway down the steps before returning to the reformed killer. He rotates on his heel. His square jaw is locked. He is most definitely bewildered by her decision to stay. He shouldn’t be, though. Her time at SHIELD may have been somewhat inadvertent, but she caught the monster fighting bug as she worked alongside the team. And if it turns out that this man—who, according to every last detail she learned in her many science classes over the years, should be dead either of exhaustion or bullet holes—is managing to fight off whatever mind control serum HYDRA has administered to him over the years, then she wants to do whatever she can to help him.

Jane would be proud.

Or not. Probably not.

“This apartment,” he says, his voice dropping off.

“Right,” Darcy says. It makes sense he wouldn’t want to stick around in the open. After all, there are still a billion agents from both the right and wrong sides of the tracks who want his head on a pike. “It’s within walking distance. We can take the seedy backroads to avoid detection.”

There it is again—a smile.

* * *

She has been scrambling to haphazardly clean her apartment for the past five minutes while the Winter Soldier stands by her front door, arms stiff by his sides. Never in a million years could she have imagined spending her Wednesday in this predicament. As she tidies the minuscule lounge area—despite its size, Darcy has managed to lump all of her washing in the centre—she experiences waves of trepidation stemming from the sudden realisation she has allowed a murderer into her home.

What if he isn’t as rehabilitated as he appears? What if his plan is to gain her trust only to kill her in cold blood because she knows too much? What if there is a bomb inside of that backpack he has yet to remove from his shoulder?

But just as she is ready to have a full-fledged panic attack, she catches his eye. Those tired, hazel eyes that have been forced to perform the misdeeds of the world’s most deranged and psychotic bad guys. She calms after that.

“There,” she puffs, cheeks billowing. She stands in the middle of her living room, hands on her hips, proud of her ability to shove dirty clothes into the spare closet outside of her bedroom. “Please hold your applause.”

The Winter Soldier does not move. Darcy notices the sudden shift in the air. “How did you get mixed up in SHIELD in the first place? How did they let you go without a fight?”

“Who says they let me go without a fight?”

“Why did you bring me here?”

Of course he has no time for games.

“Because,” Darcy says. Truthfully, she has been asking herself that question ever since she let Rob go with that stupid story about a crockpot. “Because . . .”

“Because you’re still working with SHIELD and you’re stalling until the Avengers burst through your door to take me away?” He has moved from the entryway. He is in front of her, mistrust flashing like clips of lightning in every word.

Darcy blanches. “Of course not. I haven’t been in contact with anyone from SHIELD in years.”

“Then why did you bring me here?”

“Keep your voice down. I have nosy neighbours. I’m sure they’d have no qualms about turning you in.”

“Why?” he demands, voice steady. He moves through emotions like Darcy moves through different cartons of ice cream. Fast and without warning.

The answer is obvious. “Because you looked like you needed help. You looked frightened and lonely, and I started thinking about what you must have been going through ever since you realised what HYDRA had done to you, and I couldn’t just let you go.”

The Winter Soldier looks taken aback by her confession. He repeats his question softly. Shakily. “Why?”

“You’re in DC. You should be as far away from DC as imaginable, and yet here you are. You were out in the open where anybody could have spotted you. If that isn’t a death wish, I don’t know what is. You’re obviously not the deranged killer everyone thinks you are.” Darcy really hopes she's right about this detail. It would be awful for her if it turns out she's wrong.

“That’s incredibly naive of you to assume,” he says. “I could snap you in half like you were nothing more than a toothpick.”

Darcy exhales in a rush, not having realised she was holding her breath. The Winter Soldier is leaning down. Their faces are mere inches apart. “Yeah,” she says. “But you won’t.”

A couple of hours later, after much needed deflation, James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, the super villain formerly known as the Winter Soldier, is sitting on her sofa. Head laid back against the cushions, he is asleep. His body still holds much of its rigidity in sleep. Jaw tight, hands balled into fists, eyes moving about beneath their protective lids. She bets that if she made a single noise, he would jump from his slumber, completely alert and ready for action.

He took off his jacket before he got comfortable and she is wholly transfixed by his left arm. The blood red star on his would-be shoulder shines as dusk creeps towards them. Darcy spots several thin scratches on the Communist mark. He must have clawed at it, tried to remove it, when he escaped HYDRA.

She has no idea what she is doing.

No. She does. She is harbouring a fugitive. SHIELD wants him. HYDRA does as well. Captain America would want nothing more than to know his friend is safe. Basically, this is a bad idea.

Is it coincidence that brought them together? She had opted for eating at the café due to the heat and her black dress, but Rob insisted they go to the Pool. She is not, like she has said many times, a secret agent. There was nothing forcing her to follow the suspicious character up to the Lincoln Memorial. She certainly had no obligation to bring him home.

But she doesn’t believe in silly things like fate, so it must be coincidence.

"And what a mighty fine coincidence it has turned out to be," Darcy whispers, sarcastic.

Beside her, the Winter Soldier stirs.

 

 


	2. Well, Isn't This Fantastick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talk about some major feedback! I was not expecting so many people to like this story. Thank you guys so much for your kind words about the debut chapter! It really motivated me to write. 
> 
> This chapter is, like I warned, short. Next one has the potential to be longer, but I'm not sure yet how I want to write it. 
> 
> I hope I managed to keep Darcy and Bucky in-character. Sorry if they're a little all over the place!
> 
> Also, I'm trying to name the chapters after musicals. Just in case anybody notices I've spelled "fantastic" wrong.
> 
> Enjoy!

_Shit_. Shit, shit, shit, shit.

This cannot be happening. Why is this happening! It isn't right. It's not fair. And yet, it is going forth like it's no big deal. Like so many lives won't be destroyed when it's all over. And she'll be standing in the middle of it when the dust finally clears, and she will have nothing left. No leg to stand on. No shoulder to cry on.

Darcy is distracted from her internal breakdown by a car's blaring horn. She startles, stepping back immediately onto the pavement behind her. Looking up as the driver of a snazzy BMW flips her off—she smiles sickly sweet at him and blows him a kiss—she sees the red hand on the crossing signal flashing at her. She needs to remember not to freak out when she's walking home. It could get her killed someday.

For what feels like an eternity in hell—the temperature has hit 103 and she is stuck in her heels and navy blue, tight skirt—Darcy waits for the multitude of cars to stop racing over the crosswalk. She has no time to laze about the streets of DC. She needs to get home; she needs to get home to _him_. When the traffic does finally clear enough for her to sprint as fast as she can in her three inch death shoes, she speedily walks through the busy DC streets, rounding the final corner just as she begins to see stars swirling in front of her. She blinks away the dizziness and rushes to her building.

This is not a drill. She needs to find Bucky immediately.

Darcy enters the building and goes to the single elevator just as its doors are closing. She reaches out, a 'wait' on the tip of her tongue, when the doors shut.

" _Fuck_!" she exclaims, jamming the toe of her shoe against the sliding doors.

The stairs! She always forgets about the stairs. Darcy moves down the lobby to the door behind which hides the darkened, spooky staircase Darcy is certain has been used for drug transactions and murders. Holding her breath—the smell only spurs on her conspiracies about this staircase—Darcy clicks and clacks up to the eleventh floor, thankful not to have stumbled upon the scene of any criminal activity.

"Bucky!" Darcy calls as she unlocks and opens her apartment door.

The place is spotless. She spent the first night the Winter Soldier shared her apartment cleaning the whole thing. Bucky may have managed to sleep that night, but she kept running over in her mind the bits of his report she had read all of those years ago. Violent. Ruthless. Heartless. Three adjectives nobody wants describing the man with a metal arm snoozing on their sofa.

That was two nights ago. She accidentally fell asleep in the pile of clothes she had stored in the spare closet. When she woke up several hours later in her own bed, she realised there was a part of her that had expected to never wake up again. A side effect of granting HYDRA’s favourite play thing a safe house, she assumes.

Darcy took the next two days off for two reasons. One: she was exhausted and had a few vacation days stacked up she needed to use before they expired at the end of the year. Two: there was no way she could risk leaving the Winter Soldier alone in her apartment. No work would have gotten done. So, she remained at home.

For the most part, the ex-SHIELD acquaintance and the ex-HYDRA assassin sat on the sofa in relative silence. What was there to talk about, anyway? He was clearly worn out from, well, being on the run from basically every powerful secret agency in the world, and she was at a loss for words.

One thing came out of her days off, though. He told her to call him Bucky.

She is on nickname-basis with a murderer.

Ahem, _former_ murderer. It helps Darcy’s nerves regarding the whole hiding-a-man-on-the-run situation to make that distinction.

“Bucky? It would really help me out if you showed yourself!”

Darcy moves around the apartment, panic swarming inside of her. She bangs on the bathroom door and calls his name one more time. There is no response.

Panic turns to terror. Darcy has lost the Winter Soldier. He is not in her bedroom. Not in the bathroom. Not in the spare closet. Unless he has managed to contort his muscular body into a shape fit for the kitchen cupboards, he's run off.

Maybe he knows. Maybe he bugged her phone or her brain and he knows.

Darcy stands in the middle of her lounge and runs a hand through her hair. It flops over her face, but she does nothing to move it out of the way. Everything is clean. There are absolutely no clues as to where he has gone. Which, she supposes, is the point of running off while your awesome pal Darcy is at work. She has to remember that he is on the lamb. She did warn him that being in DC was a bad idea. Perhaps he took her words to heart.

Good riddance. Darcy doesn’t know anybody that would find much enjoyment out of sheltering someone like the Winter Soldier, no matter how sure you are he’s a changed man.

Moving her hair out of her eyes, Darcy flops on the sofa and reaches for the TV remote. She is just about to turn it on when someone knocks on her door.

Darcy freezes. Everything inside of her stills except for her thoughts. Her mind goes haywire. It could be SHIELD. Or worse, HYDRA.

 _Careful, Darcy_ , she tells herself. The knock comes again.

Getting to her feet, the young reporter grips the remote tight in her hand and approaches the door slowly.

“Darcy Lewis, I know you’re in there!”

Darcy could collapse from relief. The remote clatters to the floor. “Meg, what do you want? I thought you were going on a date tonight,” Darcy says, opening the door for her across-the-hall neighbour. She is one of the nosy ones Darcy told Bucky about.

Blond hair shimmering as the sun sets behind them, Meg’s smile widens when she looks down at Darcy. “I was going to invite you up to the roof! My date cancelled.”

“The roof?” Darcy frowns. “We’re not allowed on the roof.”

“I thought so too, but I saw some guy go up there a little while ago and I thought maybe they’d changed the rules.”

Blood drains from Darcy’s face. “Some guy?” She reaches out for Meg’s arms and forces the taller woman to look her in the eyes. “Meg, what did this guy look like?”

“Oh no,” she pouts, “was he some bad guy I was supposed to be on the lookout for?”

The straight answer to that question is a resounding _yes_ , but Darcy can’t say that. “No, no. I just need you to tell me what he looked like. Tall? Dark hair just about to reach his shoulders? Was he wearing a red jacket?”

“Yes to all three. Are you sure he’s not a bad guy?”

Darcy is not prepared to respond to that question. She isn’t entirely sure herself. Letting go of Meg, she retreats back into her apartment. “You know, he’s just the new handyman for the building. He was supposed to come fix my sink, but he never showed.”

“Maybe we could go up to the roof and demand he help you!” Meg suggests.

Darcy starts closing the door. Meg peers ‘round the door’s edge. “No, no. We’ll leave him be. I’ll call the landlord and leave a very strongly worded message. Sorry, Meg. I still think going up to the roof is against the building’s safety regulations. Maybe we can hang out later. Right now I need to find something.”

“Okay, Darcy! Have a nice evening,” Meg says as the door closes.

Darcy leans against the door once it’s closed, her head leaned back. She stares at her ceiling. Adrenaline has already started to spike her bloodstream. “You too, Meg. Sorry your date cancelled.”

“It’s okay! He’s a jerk anyway.” Meg’s voice comes from far away, and soon Darcy hears the door to her friend’s apartment open and shut.

The roof. She needs to get to the roof. It’s true—they aren’t allowed up there. Clearly, she forgot to mention that to Bucky when she went through the house rules his first night in her apartment. Although, to be fair, she would have expected him to know that going up to a roof where literally anybody could find him is a bad, bad, horrible idea.

Darcy pushes herself off of the door, grabs her keys, and exits her place. The steps to the roof are even creepier than the ones to her floor, but she swallows her fear and rushes as fast as she can in her damn high heels to the door that leads out to the badly maintained rooftop.

He lurches away from the roof’s edge as soon as she bursts through the metal door. He is immediately on the defensive. Good. He should be afraid of her.

They are only five feet away from each other. Scraps of old cardboard boxes and broken tree limbs stand in their way. Darcy can practically smell the apprehension rolling off of Bucky. It seeps through his skin like sweat and wafts over to her. His hair covers his face like a curtain, but his eyes peak manage to through. They’re squinted in the evening sun of September.

“Are you kidding me?” she says. Bucky flinches. “Are you? Well?”

It seems the former HYDRA killing machine is at a loss for words. He stares at Darcy, completely motionless. He would be good in a game of musical statues.

“I couldn’t find you. You didn’t leave any kind of note. Any clue as to where you might have gone! Which is fine if you had decided to completely skip town and run to some remote location nobody knows about, but you came up to the rooftop of my building? Bad move, Bucky. What were you thinking?” God, she sounds like a parent who’s just caught their underage child sneaking in past their bedtime. “You weren’t thinking, were you? That much is evident.”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Darcy could laugh. She steps forward. The hardness of his eyes nearly throws her backwards, but she presses on. “Sorry won’t cut it.”

“Why not?” he grits. “I needed somewhere to clear my head.”

“The shower always works for me!”

“Why can’t I be up here? I am no idiot, Darcy Lewis. I know how to avoid detection.”

This time, Darcy does laugh. The noise seems to spook him. “Apparently all of that time in HYDRA’s freezer has sucked that ability right up. My neighbour saw you coming up here. She wanted to join you.”

“No civilian knows who I am,” he counters fiercely.

“ _I’m_ a civilian. My short time at SHIELD didn’t change that. You can’t assume anything about the people in this city.” Darcy drops her head. The panic that followed her home is creeping upon her again.

A heavy silence wraps around the bickering pair, interrupted only by a barrage of police cars swerving through the streets. Bucky’s knees bend in response to the noise.

“What’s happ”—

—“Someone knows you’re here. Someone other than me,” she says.

“What?” Bucky careens forwards. Darcy instinctively moves in front of him, holding her hands out to stop him from falling. His hard chest expands with shallow breaths. “Who is it? How do they know?”

Darcy slides her hands to his forearms and shrugs helplessly. “I have no clue, but someone called the Post and said there had been a sighting of this guy known as the Winter Soldier.” She looks up into his eyes. They are staring far beyond Darcy. “My boss . . . he wants me to write an exposé.”

“You?” he asks, wide eyes flicking to hers. “But you write about politics.”

Holding his eyes, Darcy sucks in a deep breath. “Somehow my boss figured out I was once involved with SHIELD. He says I have to write this piece revealing the Winter Soldier to the world. I said that I had no idea what he was talking about, but he has evidence of my time there.” Now comes the really hard part. Darcy squeezes Bucky’s real arm. His bewildered, frightened look slices into her soul. “He’s threatening me.”

“If you don’t do it, he’ll tell people you worked for SHIELD? People don’t even know what SHIELD is. Nobody will be inclined to believe him,” Bucky says.

Shaking her head, Darcy takes in another breath. “No, no, it’s got nothing to do with SHIELD.”

“Darcy,” he says lowly. It’s the first time in the three days they’ve known each other that he’s called her by her name. A flutter runs through her belly. “You don’t need to be afraid of me. I swear, I won’t hurt you.”

“I’m not scared of you hurting me,” she says. The statement is half-true. She still has no idea what it is that makes him become the Winter Soldier. Anything could set him off.

“Then tell me what they have on you.”

Darcy looks beyond Bucky to the sky. The moon is peaking through the clouds, preparing to take the sun’s place. “I was rather . . . promiscuous at college. I was the nerdy girl all of the jocks wanted to get with. One of the guys thought it would be hilarious to make a sex tape without my knowledge to show all of his friends. I found out the next morning and forced them all to delete it. I thought it was gone, but my boss today—Bucky, he handed me a disc.”

“And if you don’t write the story, he’ll release it.”

“You sound much less angry than I thought you would be,” she admits. They lock eyes again. His hair has been blown out of his face by a slight breeze. His forehead is creased, but he looks more concerned than pissed off. “Someone knows you’re here. That’s so beyond dangerous. You should leave right now and go somewhere safe.”

“Or,” he says, “I could stay here and help you write this exposé.”

Darcy drops her hands and shakes her head. “No. That’s out of the question. I can’t write that story.”

“Why not? They’ve got leverage.”

“And I’m a big girl. When you leave SHIELD, they kind of swear you to secrecy. I release a full story on the Winter Soldier and I am sure I’ll be killed the moment it hits the presses.”

Bucky slips his hands through his hair. Darcy’s hormonal mind can’t help but equate him in that moment to a male supermodel, even with the mechanical arm.

“Not if I protect you,” he says.

“From SHIELD or HYDRA? They’d both come after me.”

“Both,” he says. “Anyone.”

Darcy would be stupid to ignore the sincerity in his voice. Why would he protect her, though? Payment for her taking him in, perhaps? Most likely. He was, after all, a product of the early 20th century. Super villain or not, he still knows how to treat a lady.

But he is asking her to put them both in serious danger. She thought she left this kind of life behind when she said goodbye to Jane.

“This is crazy,” Darcy blurts. Watching Bucky’s earnest eyes weave about her face brings a question to her mind. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why write this story? What do you get out of it besides a mob?”

Bucky’s eyebrows move above the bridge of his nose. He looks pained. “If I give you the information you need for this article—Darcy”—and there is her name again—“I’m trying to find out who I was before I became HYDRA’s secret weapon. Maybe by telling you my life’s story, by . . . telling you everything I can remember, I can finally separate myself from the Winter Soldier.”

This is madness. Shakespeare could write plays about this fucked up mess she has found herself in.

“You’re sure?” she asks. “Because I am _so_ not sure.”

“It’ll be hard and definitely dangerous, but I’m sure,” he insists, and the openness of his eyes forces Darcy to believe him.

She nods slowly. “Okay. I guess we’re going to do this. Now let’s get back to the apartment before helicopters start circling.”

Head swimming, Darcy leads Bucky to the staircase. 


	3. Dear Everyone I Have Killed [Part One]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, has it been a long time. So sorry for the long time between updates. Dull inspiration and dealing with family stuff are to blame, but I'm back with another chapter. This is a two-parter because I want to keep these chapters short and these next chapters deal with the exposé which means if I had not chopped it in half, the chapter would have been about six and a half thousand words. 
> 
> As a fair warning, I'm making up some stuff about Bucky here. We're off-script for the most part. 
> 
> Not sure when I'll finish up the next chapter, but it will hopefully be before the end of the week!
> 
> Thank you so much for your kind words about last chapter. I'll get back to all of your comments as soon as I can!
> 
> And with all of that said, please enjoy this long overdue update!

_She knows she is caught in a dream. Everything around her is bathed in a haze, like she has been rubbing her eyes too much. Colours are muted. Sounds are muffled. Still, she is terrified. She knows enough to be scared._

_He stands in front of her, enraged. How did she not see him before?_

_His eyes are filled with blood. There is a darkness to his features. He looks like a vampire—like he could bite down on her jugular vein and suck the life from her without any hesitation._

_Drip, drip drip. The blood from his eyes run down his cheeks like tears. She wants to wipe them away, but she can’t move. She tries and tries to no avail. She has been chained to the ground like an animal. Cuffs encircle her wrists and ankles. It is as if she is the monster and not him._

_“Let me go!” she demands, shrieking at the top of her lungs. “Let me go, let me go, let me go!”_

_He snarls, and in one moment he becomes the rightful animal. “You have betrayed the secrets of HYDRA,” he says lowly. His voice sounds distorted, as though it is coming through a static airway. “Are you ready to receive your punishment?”_

_He leaps—an animal indeed—towards her. She screams, despite everything inside of her telling her this is a bad move. Her throat is dry, nothing is coming out, but she keeps her mouth open, rasps of air falling upon deaf ears._

_The Winter Soldier is going to kill her._

* * *

Darcy wakes shaking and sweaty. Muted light filters through her blinds, signalling another grey day in Washington DC. Her heart pounds as she attempts to recall the dream so frightening it brought her out of unconsciousness. She remembers being terrified. She remembers a beast cloaked in shadows, his eyes bloody and cold. She wanted to help him, tried to help him, but he only wanted to hurt her. Kill her.

 _A dream. It was a dream_ , she tells herself, remembering a face—which just so happens to belong to the man crashing on her couch—streaked red with blood. _A dream based on fact and accurate accounts from his time as a murder-for-hire, but a dream nonetheless_.

Staring up at the ceiling, Darcy wills her legs to move. Today is the day. She needs to get up and prepare for this interview. The Post already knows she won't be in for the rest of the week. According to them, she's off on assignment. Essentially, she has been confined to her apartment for the duration of this exposé. She can't really imagine leaving anyway. Not with Bucky here. God knows what dark thoughts roam his mind. She would rather not leave him on his own until she's managed to momentarily act like his therapist and suck some of that darkness out of him.

That dream, though. It's plaguing her. A sudden thought enters Darcy's head—she is subconsciously afraid of him. Understandable, yes. She has, after all, skimmed through top secret files dedicated to how evil he is. But this isn't good for the exposé. They need to trust each other for this to work. _She_ needs to trust him. After all, he didn't burst through her door in the middle of the night and slaughter her then—that’s a good sign, she thinks.

Darcy turns herself over on her bed. Body now facing her bedside table, she reaches out for her phone. The electronic glow burns her tired eyes as she takes in the time. 7:17. Time to get up. With great difficulty, all while her heart is pounding erratically, a warning, telling her there's a serial killer on her couch—provided he hasn't bolted in the night—Darcy climbs out of bed. She goes up to the mirror hanging on her door and inspects her bed hair. Not bad, but she still frantically brushes through before reaching for the door knob.

Her body freezes as she exits her room. Comically, like this is some great farcical sitcom and not real life, she stands with one foot extended out. Bucky Barnes is still here—he is sitting at the edge of the sofa, staring directly at her. He doesn't flinch. Doesn't register that she is even there. She would conclude he was dead, but dead people are not efficient at sitting upright.

Darcy gently puts her foot down and tilts her head very slightly, observing the creature a few feet in front of her. She watches for any sign of movement. Any breath. Any blink of the eyes. Nothing. He is completely still, like a human statue. Maybe he started playing a game of Freeze Dance in the night and hasn’t been able to turn the music back on? More likely this is a side effect of the years of mind control. He’s probably lost in some trance. Sleeping with his eyes wide open.

She read somewhere that waking up a sleepwalker could be dangerous, but then she also read somewhere that it didn’t matter. Bucky is not sleepwalking—this feels much more serious—but she will treat it as though he is, and she doesn’t have time for him to wake up on his own. Carefully, slowly, Darcy walks deliberately forward, inching closer and closer to the Winter Soldier.

He definitely isn’t dead. The moment she reaches him, she is washed in the heat radiating from his body.

Darcy holds in a breath and reaches out her hand. Her fingers curl around Bucky’s right shoulder. Through the fabric of his long sleeves her hand burns like she has pressed a stovetop.

The moment she touches him, Darcy watches him come alive. Bucky snaps his head up in a jerky fashion. He glares at her, no emotion in his dark eyes, and his hand comes up suddenly to wrap around her wrist. He holds her tight, squeezing. Cutting off the blood supply to her hand in a heartbeat.

She draws in a piercing breath and allows her big eyes to widen with shock. Her dream is coming true. The Winter Soldier is going to kill her.

And then, in an instant, it’s over. His face relaxes and he drops her wrist, his arm falling limply in his lap.

“Darcy . . .” he says, and in her name is a thousand apologies.

Rubbing her wrist reflexively—it hurts and at a glance she can see the outline of his fingers marked in a soft pink—Darcy shakes her head. “No, don’t . . . don’t worry. I shouldn’t have touched you.”

“Don’t make excuses for my behaviour,” he implores. He sounds tired. As if responding to her thought, he rubs his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says, looking up at her with eyes that match hers in size.

How old was he when they took him? If she remembers correctly, he was only a few years older than her. His face is weary and aged, but she sees that youthfulness in his gaze at this very moment. A man ripped from time for the sole purpose of playing hitman for a group of super villains.

He wouldn’t like it—she isn’t sure, but she has a feeling—but pity races through her. Poor, poor Bucky. Forced to fight, to _kill_ , for the other side.

“Hey,” she says, soft, “don’t worry about it. In fact, let’s forget it happened. You probably need some food.” Darcy steps away from the sad looking boy and goes to the kitchen. She opens the fridge to find she has barely any food. Scowling, she thinks briefly of what she can make. “Do you like egg? I can put in some deli meat and cheese, and I think this is a green pepper . . . nope, it’s a former yellow pepper, never mind. Either way, scrambled egg? I make a mean scrambled egg.”

She turns around wearing an exhausted smile. Bucky has come over from the sofa and is standing so close to her she almost falls into the open refrigerator. Thankfully, unlike the day they met, he is no hero today; he keeps his hands by his sides as she rights herself. “Wow,” she says, “you are really good at sneaking up on people.” She winces, realising she probably should have kept that observation to herself. One needs to be stealthy to kill unsuspecting targets.

“Eggs,” he says, ignoring her careless remark, “sound like a good idea. Do you need help?”

She wags her head sideways a couple of times. Her tangled hair pulls across her shoulders. “Nope. No. You probably need a shower, so while I cook these eggs up, you can, you know, have a shower. Do you have a change of clothes in that backpack?”

Bucky glances behind him at said backpack. “No,” he admits. “I didn’t think I would be staying in town.”

Ducking out from the fridge, Darcy shuts the door and heads for the closet. “No worries. I have some clothes from an ex that should fit.” Bucky’s eyes instantly go to his left arm. The metal hand clenches. “He wore mostly muscle tees,” she says.

“What’s a muscle tee?”

Bucky’s voice is nearby. Ignoring him for a second, Darcy quickly opens the closet door and prepares for a mountain of mess. She scrambles for a moment, trying to find John’s bag of clothes. She sees it poking through a pile of creased washing and grabs for it, slamming the door before anything can fall on her. She spins around, coming face to face with the Winter Soldier yet again.

Walking over to the sofa, she pours out the contents of the bin bag and finds one of John’s many muscle tees. She holds it up for Bucky to see. It has an obscure death metal band logo on the front. Skulls and fire and illegible text.

“This is a muscle tee,” she says. “Called as such because it shows off your muscles. Guys tend to look like assholes when they wear them, but that doesn’t matter. They’ll fit you, and that is what counts at the moment. I washed them when he left me a little while ago thinking I’d give them back, so they’re clean.”

He takes it from her and observes the logo. His face pulls in uncertainty. “Why didn’t you end up giving them back?”

“Um . . . not important.”

“He isn’t still looking for them, is he?”

“No, nothing like that. He sort of . . .” Darcy pauses, unsure of how to explain it to this ancient creature still unfamiliar with the modern world. “Well, it’s called _ghosting_.”

“Ghosting?”

“Yeah. Ghosting. It’s when you’re dating someone and suddenly they drop off the map. So, one day John and I were fine, the next he didn’t show up for our movie date. He blocked me on social media, refused to pick up his phone when I called. All of his friends said they didn’t know where he was,” Darcy says incredulously. She watches the floor, remembering how much it hurt. “He became a ghost.”

“People do that? Is that a thing people do on a regular basis?” Bucky asks, sounding almost angry. “That’s horrible.”

Darcy glances up at him. His eyebrows are scrunched. His nose is crinkled. Adorable. “That, my friend, is dating in the age of social media. Welcome to hell. Come on, you need that shower.”

Darcy directs her guest towards the bathroom, explaining that he should have no issue switching the shower head on. She hands him a towel and some of John's clothes before he goes into the bathroom and shuts the door. The second he is out of sight, Darcy runs desperate hands through her hair. What is she doing? Other than nonchalantly harbouring a fugitive.

She goes to the window that looks over the city and wonders how many people inside just DC know about the half-man, half-machine. She wonders how many of those people would come at her with pitchforks—and by pitchforks she means crazy and outrageous military weapons designed to blow up the entirety of North Korea in one blast—if they knew he was having a shower in her apartment. A high number, she assumes. Based on the information she remembers from his file. _Extremely Dangerous. Shoot on sight_.

As soon as she hears the shower start up, Darcy pushes all of the negative thoughts out of her brain with great difficulty and starts clearing up the clothes she dumped on the sofa. When they are all packed away in the closet, she begins preparing breakfast. She tears up the honey-glazed ham in the meat drawer into smaller pieces and grates the remaining cheese before cracking open ten eggs of one dozen. Two for herself, eight for the man she assumes requires heaps upon heaps of protein.

The eggs are just fluffy enough when the shower shuts off. Darcy quickly gets the servings on plates and places them on the kitchen counter alongside two glasses of water. She comes out of the kitchen and waits for Bucky. A few seconds pass. The door to the bathroom swings. A waft of steam, humid and wet, tumbles out as Bucky exits. He spots her and comes to a halt.

He looks lost. Cornered. Like a wild animal who has been running rampant through an industrialised city coming face to face with animal control. His long hair is wet. It sticks to his stubble like woollen string. Darcy wants to move it behind his ear, just to make him feel more comfortable, but he would probably run for the hills if she touched him now.

"I'll go out today when we're done and pick you up some things," she says, noticing that he smells like her fruity Dove shower gel. He was born in the early 20th century. His masculinity is probably dependent on smelling like pine needles and dirt. “How do the clothes fit?”

Darcy surveys his clothed body. If it wasn’t for the metal arm, she would almost believe he was a normal human being with no traumatic past of which to speak.

Bucky looks himself over. “They’re okay. The muscle tee is weird,” he says, stretching his arms out. The fabric waves and Darcy sees the skin of his sides. There are thin stripes over his ribs. Scars. His eyes find her and she looks up, pretending she wasn’t staring. “I’m missing fabric.”

“I don’t understand them,” she says. “They’re alright for working out, but other than that they make no sense. Not that I work out. Anyway.” Darcy claps, reaching over and taking Bucky’s helping of scrambled egg. She offers it to him and points to the sofa. “We can eat and watch something if you like. I’ll bet you’ve not seen a lot of great movies.”

Another mention of his time with HYDRA. Vague, but enough to make Darcy kick herself. Either Bucky does not pick up on her slip, or he isn’t up for glaring that morning—either way, he sits on the sofa with his plate and asks Darcy to pick something for them to watch. She decides on _Ghostbusters_. Amazing movie with the added benefit of also being harmless.

Look at her eating breakfast and watching a movie with the Winter Soldier. What the hell has her life come to?

* * *

**The Winter Soldier Session I:**

Darcy sits across from him on the floor in front of the TV. He is rigid atop the sofa—his shoulders are up by his ears, his breathing is ragged and random. He's scared. That much is obvious. She doesn't want him to be, but she knows no amount of reassurance from her will help soothe his anxieties. They are vast and nearly a century old. 

"Okay," she says, readjusting her legs and laying her notepad flat in the coffee table. She clicks her pen a few times; she is nervous too. "Let's begin.”

Looking over her writing, Darcy searches for an appropriate first question. She has spent the days since Bucky arrived generating points she wants to cover for the article.

Some are fluffy: _Your favourite meal? What was your mom like?_

Others are dark and will take enormous amounts of time to cover: _Can you describe to me how your first kill felt? What was it like not having any control? The serum they injected in you—did it hurt?_

She goes for an easy one first. To be honest, all she wants to do is cover the easy ones. Damn her boss. Let the world see the tape. Darcy Lewis cannot torture the mind of the Winter Soldier.

Flicking her eyes to Bucky’s, she notices how intently he is watching her. She swallows and opens her mouth, “This is an exposé. I want to know everything there is to know about you,” she says. “I want to start with your first kiss. Tell me about it.”

Bucky’s eyebrows furrow. “Why do you want to know about that?”

“So people will understand that before HYDRA took you, you were just a boy from New York,” she explains. “It’s not subtle. It’s a technique used in a lot of articles to humanise controversial figures. But it helps. Trust me.”

He still doesn’t look sure. His forehead is still creased and his eyes are thin, but he complies. “I don’t even know if I can remember my first kiss,” he says, and for the second time that day Darcy feels a sharp pang of sorrow for Bucky Barnes. 

“Try,” she says softly. “I can give you some exercises to help with memory recollection if you like.”

Bucky shakes his head. “No, I can do it on my own,” he says. He closes his eyes. She sees them moving beneath their lids. Swerving, trying to go back in time. “Anne Coleman,” he says suddenly. His eyes fly open. “I was twelve, she was thirteen. She liked walking home with me after school whenever Steve was sick.”

There is a wistful look upon his face as he tells her this story, and she wishes more than anything she could place herself inside of his mind and see this memory in living colour.

“That was very kind of her.” Darcy writes down the name ‘Anne Coleman’ without looking away from Bucky. “Did you like her?”

“Everyone did,” he says. “She was from a wealthier family. Short, blond hair—I remember that. Nobody could understand why she would want to hang around with me, least of all myself. But she kept offering to walk home with me. One day, right outside my door, she bent down and kissed me.”

“What was it like?” Darcy asks, scribbling down the information as discreetly as possible.

“Dry,” he says, and that smile she thinks suits him so well winks at her. He is lost down memory lane. “I was so nervous my mouth went completely dry.”

“What happened after that?”

Pausing, Bucky sucks in a breath. “She . . . well, she died.”

Darcy’s hand stops moving. “What? How?”

“Thugs,” he says monotonously with a slight lift of his shoulders. “She was at a store when it got robbed the following weekend and got caught up in the crossfire.”

So much for a fluffy beginning question. “Bucky, I’m so sorry,” Darcy utters.

“It was a long time ago,” he says. “It’s okay now.”

But it wasn’t such a long time ago for someone like Bucky who probably still wakes up expecting it to be 1945.

“What did you do after it happened?” she asks after gathering herself.

Their gazes meet. He holds her there as if his hand is cupping her chin, keeping her in place. “I walked home alone," he says.


	4. Dear Everyone I Have Killed [Part 2]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this the quickest ever update from me? Probably. And that is sad. 
> 
> And so is this chapter. Kind of. Maybe. To me, it's a little sad. I wanted to showcase some of Bucky's slight vulnerabilities while making sure he stayed fairly levelheaded. It's up to you to decide if I succeeded in my endeavour.
> 
> Sorry if this chapter gets really repetitive. I like how it reads, but I'm of course terribly biased. 
> 
> Enjoy!

**The Winter Soldier Session III:**

She has been a bad reporter. As she sits in front of Bucky during their third quasi-interview, as he explains the feel of his World War II uniform to her, she knows how bad of a reporter she has been. Avoiding all of the tough questions in favour of the easy ones. The ones that make it sound as though he is a hundred-year-old veteran with a heart of gold.

Her boss keeps emailing her. Taunting her with the tape. It’s Thursday and the piece is meant to be in Sunday’s paper. She is running out of time.

Which is her fault. She skipped out on an interview yesterday in favour of watching more films with the former assassin. _Good Will Hunting_ , _Jaws_ , _Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope_ , and _Jurassic Park_ to round it out. 

Part of this deal, she likes to think, is helping him integrate a little more into the 21st century. Thanks to her, if he ever gets accosted by a movie freak he’ll be able to hold his own.

“Something’s on your mind,” Bucky says.

Darcy startles, her pen clattering to the floor. He’s holding her gaze. She wonders how long she’s been holding his, her mind wandering, stressing over their time constraint.

“I’m okay,” she says. Rubbing her eyes, she collects her pen and readjusts her position on the ground. “Should we continue?”

“You haven’t been asking any of the questions I’ve been expecting,” he says, adjusting the white tank Darcy found in John’s bag of clothes. It’s tight against Bucky’s chest, and he keeps dipping his index and middle finger into the collar, keep the fabric away from his throat.

Looking away from the Winter Soldier’s chest, Darcy moves her eyes back to his. She taps her notepad with the tip of her pen. “What questions have you been expecting?”

His shoulders move up from their relaxed position. It’s good—he’s much calmer today. He sunk into the sofa when they began, completely at ease.

She doesn’t want him to lose that. Doesn’t want to frighten him with the heavy stuff. He has only just started retreating from his shell. It would kill her to shove him back inside. Can’t she turn this into a fluff piece? She can see the headline now. “A Reformed Assassin: Find out what the Winter Soldier’s favourite flavour of ice cream is.”

What a joke.

But none of this is funny. None of it is fluffy. Even as he told her Tuesday about his time at bootcamp, there was a cloud weighing down each of his words. A struggle as he tried remembering his Sergeant’s name. 

“I guess I keep waiting for you to ask me about HYDRA,” he says eventually.

“Do you want me to ask about HYDRA?”

This is the journalist in her talking. Smoothly reverse-psychology-ing the subject of her story.

Bucky’s shoulders are steadily moving closer to his ears. At the mere mention of HYDRA his body starts to coil.

“I want you to write a good article.” He stops, tongue between his teeth. Shoulders, meet ears. “I want to protect you. Your boss wants all of the dirty details about my time under HYDRA’s control. I’m ready to give you answers.”

The Winter Soldier doesn’t sleep. Darcy knows this because for the few nights he has been supposedly sleeping on her couch, she has twice come out of her bedroom in the middle of the night to find his body upright and on full alert.

Her own personal guard dog in the shape of a hundred-year-old man with a metal arm.

Really, though, who needs sleep when the organisation that held you for so many years kept you frozen whenever your services were not required? Surely he has slept enough.

“But what if I’m not ready to ask those questions?” Darcy presses. She kneels, raising her body off the floor. “What if—what if I _can’t_ ask those questions?”

Bucky’s eyebrows slither above his nose creating a crease. A sharp line between his brows inside of which Darcy could fit her pinky finger. “Why wouldn’t you be able to ask the questions? I’m helping write this exposé so your bastard of a boss doesn’t release that tape. We need to get to the harder questions, Darcy.”

“Don’t do that,” she warns, rising to her feet. There is the coffee table separating them, but Darcy looms over him now. Winter Solider or not, she is angry, and when Darcy Lewis is angry, she does not hold back. “Don’t put all of this on me. _I’m_ trying to help _you_. Remember? I don’t give a shit about that fucking tape anymore! Let my bastard of a boss give it to every potential future employer of mine. Let him hand it out to my colleagues. This story is so much more than that damn sex tape. It’s about you and it’s about HYDRA and it’s about SHIELD. It’s _dangerous_ , Bucky.”

“And I said I’d protect you!” Bucky hollers. He stands now too, but she refuses to back down.

“That’s all fine and dandy, but who’s protecting you?”

Tensions are high. She shouldn’t be shouting. But she is not the one in need of rescuing. And maybe he isn’t either, maybe he really is fine. Unaffected by all of this bullshit. But Darcy doesn’t believe that. Not really. He isn’t soulless. He’s just a soldier, trained to not feel anything. And when someone hasn’t felt for so long, they start to think they’re invincible.

Nobody’s invincible.

“I don’t need protection!”

“Maybe you will!” she bites. “Maybe recalling the hell HYDRA put you through will send you spiralling down some rabbit hole that no one will be able to get you out of. I can’t do that to you!”

“Why not?”

“Because . . .” Darcy trails off, catching her breath. They are both panting, nostrils flaring. Bucky’s face is red. A vein in his forehead pulses. “Because it isn’t fair,” she says softly. _Because I care about you_ is what she wants to say, but she can’t. Not yet. How silly is it that she has grown fond of the guy? “It’s not fair to put you through this.”

“I’m sorry,” he says after a momentary silence. “You’re right, I shouldn’t put this on you. Like I said on the rooftop, I want to do this for myself. To _prove_ to myself—and to them—that I’m more than what they made me to be.”

Darcy’s hands itch by her sides. She clutches the ends of her lightweight cardigan. “You are,” she tells him. “I can see that already.”

His mouth twitches, but she can’t tell if it’s in a smile or a frown.

“Don’t worry about me. I’m ready to get this off of my chest.”

“The story or that wife-beater?”

It twitches again, his mouth. This time, it’s clearly a smile.

Following a small break—they both needed one; to breathe if nothing else—they are back in position. She clicks her pen a few times, trying to get out the shakes before she hits the hard stuff. Bucky looks calm, but she can see a glimmer of fear cross his stubbled face every time he blinks.

Darcy glances over her page of questions. A few of them are scratched out, deemed too invasive by herself. The majority of the ones at the bottom of the page—the light questions that she had to reach in her mind to find—are all checked off. It’s the ones at the top, the ones about death and destruction, that she focuses on now.

“How do you want to do this?”

“What do you mean?” Bucky fixes his posture and takes a sip of water from the glass in front of him.

“I mean,” Darcy says, clicking her pen, “do you want to just start talking about certain subjects, or should I ask you specific questions. If you wish to do the latter, would you prefer I first ask the questions I think would the most difficult to answer, or would it be best if we eased into it and made those the final questions . . .?” She stops herself from trailing on. She raises her eyebrows at Bucky in questioning. “Pick your poison.”

“No easing into it,” he decides immediately. “Ask me the tough ones. I need to get this out. Don’t go easy on me, Darcy.”

“Okay,” she says, pumping herself up mentally for the onslaught of questions at her disposal. “Kills. Do you remember them?”

 _Shit_.

Darcy nearly swallows her tongue.

That was the first question she wrote down. It has a dark strike through it.

“I—I retract that,” she says quickly. “You don’t have to answer it. Forget I asked.”

But either Bucky didn’t hear her, or he really meant it when he asked her not to go easy on him. “I remember all of them,” he says in a whisper. He stares blankly ahead of him at the door to her bedroom.

Darcy hand trembles as she debates whether to put his words on the record.

“That’s the thing about mind control. I don’t know if they realised it would be a side effect, but I can remember everything that happened when I was under their spell,” he says. His breathing grows increasingly laboured. “I remember every scream. Every drop of blood. Whenever I started to come out of it, before they put me back under, I would go over everything I had done. Over and over and over. I tried to think of it all, to hold onto it. Because if I remembered it, if I remembered _them_ , the people I killed, the _innocent people_ I killed, I thought maybe I would be able to fight the control they had over me.”

“Were you ever able to fight it?” Darcy croaks. She hasn’t written a single thing he has said down, but she doubts she needs to. All of his words are stamped in her brain. She won’t forget any of it.

Bucky looks at her suddenly. His hard eyes are glaring, but they soften the longer he stares at her, like he is remembering this is a safe place and not an interrogation room. “I don’t know. Probably not. But it got harder for them to keep me under. I snapped out of it quicker towards the end.”

“The end,” she says, reminding herself that although this is not an interrogation, she is a journalist. It is her job to find answers. This isn’t story time. She must continue with her questions. “Tell me how you escaped.”

Bucky outlines his encounter with Captain America—his childhood pal, Steve Rogers. As he speaks, Darcy sees the confrontation playing out before her. Two friends: one stuck between the memories of his youth and the serum controlling his mind, the other balancing the line between loyalty to his nation and loyalty to his best friend.

Water fills the apartment as Bucky recounts jumping from the failing aircraft into the Potomac to rescue the man he had been sent to kill.

“I dragged him out of the river and disappeared,” he finishes, refusing to detail where he went or how he got there.

“It was Steve that finally saved you, then,” Darcy concludes. Bucky’s face takes on a look of confusion. “He helped you remember who you were before HYDRA took you,” she clarifies.

“In a sense. I was already remembering things,” he says slowly. Quietly. Like these are dirty secrets. Which, Darcy supposes, they are. Ugly secrets he is only sharing with her to better himself. “They were having to work harder to suppress my memories.”

“What sort of things were you remembering?”

Panic flashes across Bucky’s face. His eyes close, his face twitches, as if he is pushing away those same memories. “They—HYDRA—they . . . experimented on me. When they rescued me after I fell, they took me to a lab and operated on me. They gave me this arm,” he says, his bionic hand rounding in a fist, “and made me the Winter Soldier.”

Darcy scribbles in her notebook, her chest tightening as she listens to Bucky tell his tale.

She always knew the world was full of shitty people. Always knew HYDRA were some of the worst shitty people. But hearing this from the mouth of HYDRA’s secret weapon, their most prized assassin, and knowing that beneath his title of Winter Soldier is a man hurting, makes Darcy want to go back in time and kill whoever it was that turned James Buchanan Barnes into their plaything.

“So, they would zap your mind to better control it?” she says when Bucky’s eyes open. They are lined in red, and this only makes Darcy’s heart sink further into her belly.

“Yes. In order to make sure I was susceptible to their commands, I was forced to lose any part of my former self.”

“The self you’re trying to reclaim through this exposé?” Darcy implores. He nods. “Now, when you become the Winter Soldier”— Darcy breaks off, not liking her phrasing. —“How did you become the Winter Soldier?” she asks. “What would they say or do to you? Can you describe it?”

Bucky sucks in the deepest breath she has ever seen. Obviously this is a touchy subject. Not that anything they’ve spoken about today has been easy.

 _Don’t go easy on me, Darcy_.

She most definitely is not doing that.

When he is ready to give his answer, Bucky adjusts himself on the sofa and stares right into Darcy’s eyes. There is an intensity in the blue of his eyes that halts Darcy’s hand. He looks almost frightened. Like he is worried that with the information he is about to supply to her, she might turn around and use it against him.

“This doesn’t have to be in the piece,” she says, hoping her own gaze is sincere enough for him. “I won’t write any of it down if you don’t want it in the paper.”

“No. I’ll tell you and you can put it in the story,” he says resolutely. “They would say these words. Random words, meaningless words. I can feel it when it—when _he—_ starts to take over. I get blindingly angry, and then everything goes black.

“Then I’ll wake up,” he continues. “Slowly things start making sense—I’ll remember bits and pieces of what happened while I was under. That’s the worst; when I have to see what I’ve done. If not physically, then in my head. In the end, I remember it all. Until they zap it away again when they decide it’s time.”

Darcy’s mouth is dry. He isn’t looking at her anymore. His stare has returned to her bedroom door. She wonders if he spends his nights watching that door. His eyes seem so used to being there.

* * *

Several hours later, Darcy and Bucky guzzle water to soothe their scratched throats. She is almost done. Only one question remains.

She has not allowed to herself to hold back. She has hit him hard and she has kept going even when Bucky’s answers threaten to shut down her entire system. Even when he struggles to speak.

But she is ready for this to be over. Tonight, she will go into her room and lock herself inside until the exposé has been completed. Over the next couple of days, she will spend time editing the story before sending it in on Saturday for Sunday’s paper. And then, finally, it will be done. Both she and Bucky will be set free.

“Alright.” Darcy sets down her glass. Bucky does the same. He fiddles with his too-long hair, brushing the fringe out of his weary eyes. “I have one last question.”

“Okay,” he says, sounding relieved. “I’m ready.”

“Good. That’s . . . good. Okay, Bucky, why are you doing this? Exposing yourself to me and the world. Why not stay in hiding for the rest of your days? What do you gain from this article?”

Her final attempt to push away the Winter Soldier. Let people understand the true nature of Bucky Barnes. Understand how badly he wishes to be separated from the beast HYDRA turned him into.

She only hopes it works.

There is a pregnant pause following the utterance of her question. It fills the entire space of her lounge. It is loud. A ringing in Darcy’s ears. She hears nothing but the silence. She is about to repeat herself, perhaps rephrase her question, when Bucky’s mouth opens and he begins speaking.

“To get back those years they stole from me. To once and for all cut all ties with the Winter Soldier,” he discloses. His right hand goes up to his left shoulder and he rubs against the red star. His fingernails, blunt from his teeth, claw at the Communist symbol. He drops his head, chin bumping his collarbone. “That’s cliché, I know.”

“None of the is cliché,” Darcy avows.

Bucky’s head springs up and he gives her a disbelieving look.

“This is unprecedented. Nothing like this has happened before. A cliché,” she says, “is something overplayed or hackneyed. A device people are so tired of hearing. Mind-controlled HYDRA escapee trying to rebuild his hundred-year-old life is hardly a familiar trope, Bucky.”

Bucky tilts his head very minimally to the side and Darcy watches as a small, tired, thankful smile pulls at his cheeks.

Going over her notes, Darcy offers him her own smile. “We’re done,” she says.

“Done?”

“Done,” she confirms. “I’ll write it up tonight and spend the next couple of days making it sound as though I got all of this information through secondhand sources, and then I will send it in.”

Bucky glimpses the clock above the TV. “It’s almost midnight.”

“Yeah,” she says, getting to her feet. “I write best when I’m sleep deprived. There are some leftovers in the fridge if you’re hungry. Feel free to watch something while I work. Don’t worry about the volume. I listen to the Beatles when I work through headphones.” She picks up her notebook and takes a few steps to her bedroom. “I suggest _Slumdog Millionaire_.”

“Hey, Darcy?” Bucky calls as she enters her room.

She turns around. “Yeah?”

“What are the Beatles?”

“Um . . . tomorrow,” she says, fighting the urge to laugh. “We will discuss the Beatles tomorrow. Don’t watch _Slumdog_. Go for _Across the Universe_. All Beatles music.”

Bucky nods his head, showing he will take her suggestion, and Darcy shuts the door to her room. She sits down at her desk, eyeing the street below. In a few days, all of the people in the city will know about the man switching on her television. They will know of his sufferings.

Opening her laptop, Darcy pulls up her writing app and flips her notes to **Session I**.

 

* * *

Darcy Lewis cannot stop the tears scurrying down her face. Three hours into composing the article and she is having a mini breakdown as “Golden Slumbers” blasts through her earphones. She breathes through her sobs so as to not disturb Bucky.

But he is a super soldier and she is not surprised when she feels a hand clamp down on her shoulder. She looks up, her earphones falling out. The last strands of “Golden Slumbers” play quietly through the buds, leading into “Carry That Weight.”

“I’m sorry,” she gasps, swallowing a gulp of air.

Bucky stands over her, his nose crinkled. Eyes imploring, staring deeply into her own. His fleshy hand moves up from her shoulder and grips her face, and for one terrifying second Darcy thinks he has reverted into the Winter Soldier. One graze of his thumb and her neck would be snapped.

Of course, this is ridiculous. His thumb is gentle, and it wipes at the trail of tears gathered on her chin.

Closing her eyes, Darcy tosses her fear out and leans into his touch.

“I’m sorry,” she says again.

“What happened?” he asks, voice gruff. “Did your boss send another message?”

She shakes her head, burying it deeper into Bucky’s hand. “No, nothing like that. I was just . . . I was just writing the article, and I got to the stuff we were talking about today and”—

Darcy cuts herself off, unable to speak without sounding as though she is having a panic attack.

Bucky does something strange. Dropping his hand, he goes for her wrist and carefully pulls her up. When she is standing, her iPod on the floor, the Winter Soldier pulls her against him. Instinctively, she wraps her arm around his waist, squishing her face against his chest. Bucky’s arms go around her shoulders. One hand holds the back of her neck, the other, the metal one, smoothes between her shoulder blades.

“Aren’t you angry at them?” she asks, tilting her head up. Her chin rests on his sternum.

Bucky angles his head downward. His face holds a thousand questions, but he asks only one. “Angry?”

“At HYDRA,” she says. “Aren’t you angry at them for doing this to you? Because I am. I am _so angry_.”

“That’s why you’re crying? For me?”

With their heads inclined towards one another, she can feel his breath circling her nose. He smells of sweet mint. Toothpaste.

“For you,” she confesses. “For everything they took from you. How were you able to stay so calm while I asked you all of those questions? Going over your answers just now—I could never really understand your pain, but getting even the slightest glimpse of it has me breaking down. How are you so strong?”

The hand gripping her neck slips away and Bucky moves strands of her out of her face. He tucks them behind her ear.

This is mad. His touch is soothing her. Calming her.

This isn’t supposed to be happening. They are supposed to maintain a work relationship. Professional. No tender touches. No soft words.

But she is far too weak to stop him now.

“I’m not strong,” he says. His blue eyes swim in the muted yellow light from Darcy’s desk lamp. “I’m . . . I don’t know what I am. I’ve had my life stolen from me. Everything that I am has been stolen. Of course I’m angry, but I’m also tired. Most days I want nothing more than to die.”

“Why do you say that?” she begs, ignoring the strain in her neck.

“I’ve done so many horrible things. I have no right to be alive. I deserve to die as penance for my crimes, but also because this world has nothing for me. Not anymore. I’ve realised that today.”

“How can you say that?” Darcy says. She pulls herself away from him. He looks startled at her decision. “Remember when you said why you were helping me with this article? Up on the roof, you said you wanted to break free from the Winter Soldier. Today, earlier, you said you wanted to reclaim your life. Now you want to die? That isn’t part of this deal, Bucky.”

“I don’t belong here,” he says.

“You do. This is your life. If you let yourself forget that, HYDRA wins. You’ll be remembered as their prized assassin. They’ll hold that over you long after you’re dead.”

Bucky slides his hands through his hair. “I”—

—But it is his turn to be unable to speak. He pants, backing up until the backs of his legs collide with her bed, and he sits, clutching his head.

Darcy is unsure of what to do, but when she hears Bucky let out a guttural sort of cry, she quickly finds her place beside him. She touches his back. Rests her hand flat against his spine.

“You need to sleep,” she murmurs, refusing to cry anymore. “I can take the sofa if you think a bed would help you rest.”

Bucky’s head sways side to side. “No. Stay with me.” He releases his head and looks at her, a wetness draped over his stubble. “Please.”

It is a bad idea. Spending the night with Bucky Barnes. But like she already knows, she is weak.

Nodding, Darcy slides back on her bed, glancing at the space beside her. Bucky moves in her direction. Neither change into nightclothes. There isn’t any time for such trivial things.

When they are both beneath the sheets, lying on their backs, eyes towards the ceiling, hearts thumping, Darcy asks, “Do you want me to turn the light off?”

“No,” he says, “leave it on.”

 


	5. Sunday in the Apartment with Captain America

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday, everyone.

 

There is a misty haze covering Washington DC as Darcy awakens. Bleak, low hanging grey clouds drift across the sky, blocking the sun. Traffic whizzes through the streets regardless. Horns blare, tires screech. Rubbing the dried sleep from the corners of her eyes—she winces in pain as she accidentally rips a couple of eyelashes out—Darcy glances at her alarm clock, groaning when she catches sight of the time. 6:30 on the dot. Is it any wonder that on this ugly Sunday morning in September, Darcy Lewis has been pulled from her troubled slumber at the exact moment her blackmailing, asshole of a boss said her article was to be put up on the  _Post_ 's website?

Darcy isn't the least bit surprised. Sunday, September 27 at 6:30 a.m. The date and time have been stamped on her brain since she sent in the exposé and received her boss' email. People all over the globe are waking up to  _pings_ as their phones announce a top article from the famed  _Washington Post_.  _ **Breaking News**_ , it will read, _ **One Hundred Years: The Winter Soldier sits down with one brave reporter to share his life story**_. They will read the stupidly entitled article—she had no control over it, of course; all of her proposals were shot down—and the Winter Soldier's secrets will be forever unlocked thanks to Darcy and her inability to ignore strange-looking men walking up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial.

She can't help but feel as though she has turned the key on Pandora's Box. That she has unleashed all of the once-contained evil into the world. HYDRA will surely be looking for the article's author, alien machine guns at the ready. SHIELD is no doubt on the hunt, too, three minutes following the article's release.

Darcy could laugh. At first, she agreed to do this story partly to get back the tape from her boss. To help a puppy-dog-eyed assassin too, but she would be a rotten liar if she said her tape had not also played a large role in her acceptance of the article. And now, here she is, sex tape safely destroyed, and she does not give a shit. All of her thoughts are consumed by worry. By fear that men—it's always men—with extraterrestrial weapons are hunting her scent as she lies beneath the thin, soft blanket on her bed. Not just her scent, though. HYDRA and SHIELD aren't stupid. They're going to be looking for him too. That, if anything, scares her more.

This started as a way to steal back her unlawfully made sex tape, but it turned into so much more than Darcy could have imagined.

Anxiety strangling her whole body, Darcy carefully creeps out of bed. Her feet touch the humid floor of her bedroom, and she stretches quietly before standing and walking over the window. The bleak day is fitting. She can sense a drop in the temperature, but there is still moisture riding in the air. Still a heavy weight to the atmosphere. It presses on Darcy's shoulders. Looking out the window, she watches a streak of lightening slice through the clouds. Seconds later a rumbling echoes close by, and in the blink of her eyes a cascade of rain pours from a split in the blanket of grey.

Darcy jumps at the sudden downpour. She takes a moment to catch her breath before turning away from the rain-splattered window. The Winter Soldier is still asleep in her bed. She sighs audibly—clichédly—in relief, watching his bare, sculpted chest rise and fall with steady breaths. Leaning against the window, she folds her arms beneath her breast and simply watches. His hard face softens in sleep. His pink lips are slightly parted. Every now and again, his exhale whistles out between them. As she creepily observes his slumbering form, his eyes roll beneath their lids in a dream. He looks so calm. So relaxed. Like nothing is troubling him. Glancing at her clock, Darcy realises this is the longest he has slept since she took him in. Good.

Of course, it is not true calm. There is no such thing for someone like him. But for now she lets him pretend. There will be enough about which to be concerned when he wakes up.

Bucky Barnes has been sharing her bed for the past three nights. Darcy shakes her head in pure disbelief at the revelation. They haven't talked about it. Not in so many words. After he found her crying, after he confessed to her his feelings of outrageous inadequacy, and she let him sleep beside her, the light burning all night long, there was never a discussion on whether they would continue their cohabitation of her bed. Their day would end and together they would wordlessly slip beneath the blanket and sleep. Only one thing had changed: the room's only source of light now comes from outside.

Over the last couple of days, to take both of their minds off of the looming exposé, Darcy has been filling their hours with all sorts of movies. She has shown him a larger portion of her favourites and dipped into the pile of classics gifted to her by her maternal grandfather. Bucky really enjoys the classics. She watched his face as  _Casablanca_ played, and she has never seen him so enraptured.

If she didn't know any better, she would easily forget Bucky's harrowing past. She would easily pretend they were nothing more than the best of friends, steadily moving towards something deeper. After all, he kept sliding nearer and nearer to her as they sat on the sofa. He wiped the tears from her cheeks after Ingrid Bergman left Humphrey Bogart. His stares had become lingering and thoughtful.

But she did know better. This is no time to play What If Your House Guest Wasn't Actually a Famed Assassin Trained and Brainwashed by the Baddest of Bad Guys.

But still . . . in his sleep, Bucky is only a man. A tired, tortured man seeking refuge from all of the horrible things stalking his poor mind.

Another crack of thunder distracts Darcy. She eyes her clock. Almost twenty minutes have passed since the article dropped. Abandoning the window, she grabs her laptop from her desk and quietly exits the bedroom. Out in her kitchen, Darcy places her laptop next to the coffee machine and opens it, quickly signing into her account. Her fingers tremble as she types in the  _Post_ ' _s_  website in her search bar. The instant she clicks  _Enter_ , Darcy feels her lungs shrivel. Her article is front and centre. An old, blurred image of the Winter Soldier sits beside the headline. Darcy's eyes wander the page before landing on the symbols below the title. The small bubble representing the comments section catches her attention. The article has been out for no more than thirty minutes and there are already over two hundred comments.

Her lungs break off and stab into her intestines.

She does this all of the time. She always checks the comments on her articles. Sometimes she even responds. But she usually writes for the political section. Those comments sections are filled with bigoted assholes and biased know it alls. Darcy can only imagine what sort of people comment on an exposé focused on the Winter Soldier's outrageous past and steady reformation.

Darcy shuts her laptop with a  _click_. There is no need to torture herself by reading the comments. Nobody even knows she wrote the piece. Instead of being consumed by fear, she will cook breakfast. Yes. Breakfast. Waffles, perhaps. She hasn't showed off her waffle recipe to Bucky yet. He deserves her waffles after everything he has been through.

Stepping away from her laptop, Darcy closes in on her fridge. A waft of cold air chills her skin immediately after she opens the door. She recalls the recipe her father handed down to her. Eggs,  _check_. Butter,  _check_. Blueberries,  _che_ —

— _Knock. Knock._ ** _Knock_**

Darcy's whole body freezes. Her bones, muscles, blood—everything  _stops_.

 _Shit_ , she cries inwardly.  _Shit_ ,  _shit_ ,  _shit_.

They've come for her. They've come for  _him_. HYDRA is behind her door with their phasers set to kill and Darcy Lewis is dressed in her  _One Hundred and One Dalmatians_ -themed pyjamas while the Winter Soldier is passed out on her bed.

Maybe it isn't HYDRA, though. Or SHIELD. Maybe it's Meg. After all, it was Meg last time this happened.

Closing the refrigerator silently, Darcy rises to full height and creeps towards her door. She holds her breath. Through the peephole she sees the rounded upper body of someone who is definitely not Meg. It's a man. It's always a man.

The man knocks again. Darcy's eyes almost pop out of her their sockets.

"Darcy, I know you're in there," the figure says, his large torso clothed in a thin, white t-shirt.

Hang on a second. Darcy frowns in confusion. She knows that voice.

 _Captain America_.

Holy shit. Captain fucking America is at her door. Darcy swallows thickly, unsure of what to do next. He wants Bucky, that much is evident. But how the hell does he know the Winter Soldier is with her?

 _Must act casual_ , she warns herself. Darcy shakes out her hair and tries some breathing exercises, none of which seem to work. Her lungs still are not functioning properly. Quietly gasping for air, Darcy ignores the very, very loud voice in her head warning her to keep the door shut, slides the chain out of its bed, and turns the door handle.

"What's up, Cap? How's life treating you?" Darcy asks, moving her eyes up and up until she reaches Captain America's face. He is much taller than she thought he would be. And much thicker. How is one person so muscular? He really is the face of the All-American boy. Blond hair, award-winning lips that spread into the most welcoming smile. Cheeks so smooth, but Darcy knows if he wanted to he could grow a beard better than any lumberjack. She would be in awe if she weren't so terrified.

Captain America's blue eyes soften as she stands in front of him. "He's here, Darcy. I know he is."

It should not be the first thought to enter her mind, but all she can hear ringing around her head is her name coming out of Captain America's mouth.  _Her_  name. Take that, anyone who said she would never amount to anything.

But then the second thought that enters her mind revolves around Bucky and it instantly kills her mood. She has to keep him safe.

"Who are we talking about?" she checks, her lips wobbling as she tries to smile nonchalantly.

"Darcy," he says, and nothing more.

"Really, I'm a little lost. I have no clue who you need to find. But whoever it is, they're not here. Trust me; this is a tiny apartment. My only roommate is this pigeon that likes to fly in here whenever I forget to close my bedroom window." Releasing a choked laugh, Darcy feels her heart thrumming against her ribs faster than it ever has before. She wouldn't be surprised if Cap could see her shirt bouncing in time to her heartbeat.

"He has to be here," the giant insists.

Darcy sucks in as deep a breath as her shrivelled lungs can and glances around the outside of her apartment. From above, she hears a door open and close.

 _Shit_.

"You wanna come in?" she offers, stepping back and opening a shaking arm. Captain America does not budge. "Come on, people are gonna get suspicious when they come out of their homes and find  _the_  Captain America lounging outside my apartment."

She won't tell him where Bucky is, but he isn't giving up. She has no choice but to invite him inside.

Cap's eyes shift about. He must hear the same footsteps coming down the stairs as Darcy because less than ten seconds later he moves through the doorway. She closes the door fast, resting her forehead against it for a quick moment while she locks up. Turning around, she sees the superhero taking in his surroundings. He focuses on her large DVD shelving unit. Walking up to it, he intently studies all of the titles.

"Um, so," she says after he slides  _Dirty Dancing_ out of its slot. He looks over at her, smiling slightly. Darcy giggles breathlessly and goes into the kitchen. "I was about to make some waffles. Do you like waffles? I do. They're delicious"—

"You're nervous," Cap says, returning  _Dirty Dancing_ to its rightful place. "You don't have to be. I just want to know where he is, Darcy. I can protect him." He starts walking towards her.

"Pro-protect him?"

He reaches the kitchen counter behind which Darcy stands shivering. "That's all I want: to keep him safe."

"But you're SHIELD," she says, eyebrows bent downwards. "You can't want to keep him safe. It goes against your ethics, or something."  _Dammit_. She shouldn't have said that. Now Cap definitely knows she definitely knows who they're talking about.

Captain America rests his elbows on the bare kitchen counter separating them and bends until they are face to face. "SHIELD doesn't exist anymore. And even if it did . . . Darcy, this is my best friend. If you don't hand him over to me, soon it won't be just be me knocking on your door. Soon, there will be bad guys, and they don't really like knocking."

Darcy is silent for a minute. She picks at a dried spot of caramel on the countertop left when she decided she was talented enough to homemake caramel. (News flash: she wasn't.) What the Cap says is true. There is no doubt in Darcy's mind the bad guys are on their way to her apartment that very second. And yes, they will come at her with machine guns and grenades. But she can't just give Bucky up, not even to Captain America.

It seems like a lifetime ago since she spotted that strange figure running up the Lincoln Memorial steps. And in that lifetime, she has learned to care for the former assassin. Really, deeply, stupidly care for him. Only she could be this dimwitted. Trust Darcy Lewis to wind up becoming enamoured with a living fossil whose job used to be mindlessly killing people for literal Nazis.

That is not him anymore, though, she reminds herself. There is warmth in his eyes now. Fire in his touch. HYDRA do not control him like they used to.

"He isn't here," Darcy says softly, but as the words depart her mouth, a door within the apartment creaks open.

Not just any door. The door to her bedroom.

Holding her breath, Darcy watches everything move in slow motion. Captain America turns around, half-blocking her view of the room. Bucky stops dead in his tracks, a yawn dying before its time. His shirtless physique tightens. His stomach muscles bulge. As do the muscles in his right arm as he clenches his fists. There is a faint sound of scratching metal. He's on the defensive; Darcy watches his eyes turn to slits.

"I tried to get him to leave," Darcy squeaks, but neither of the men pay attention to her.

"How did you know I was here?" Bucky says, the words coming out attached to a growl.

Captain America lets slip a sigh of relief. "It didn't take a genius," he says. "The things in the article . . . they could have only come from the source. You wrote a good article, Darcy. Unless you grew up with him, you wouldn't have known. But HYDRA, they'll know"—

—"No," Bucky says sharply, "how did you know I was  _here_. The article was published anonymously."

"Darcy is the only employee working for the  _Post_  who was previously employed by SHIELD. I just connected the dots, Buck. It wasn't hard. And if I can do it, then HYDRA . . ." He trails off. "We need to discuss your next step."

"What next step?" Darcy is surprised to hear her own voice. Both men turn their attention to her, and she repeats her question more confidently. "What do you mean,  _next step_?"

"Him getting out of here," Captain America explains. "Escaping. He can't stay. It's too dangerous. For you and for him."

No.  _No_!

Darcy feels her throat cinch shut.

He can't leave her. Not after all they've been through. Not after all they've shared. She won't let him go. She  _won't_.

"Darcy."

Jolting, Darcy blinks and finds Bucky standing in front of her. His hands gently hold her shoulders. God, is she crying? Swiftly, she rids her warm cheeks of tears and looks up at Bucky.

"Darcy," he says again, "it's okay."

"Yeah," she coughs. Pulling away from Bucky, she walks backwards towards the front door, her mind whirring. "Yeah, it's okay. I'm gonna leave you two to sort this whole mess out. It was nice meeting you, Captain America." She salutes him as she tries to stop her bottom lip from quivering.

"Please, Darcy. Call me Steve," he says, an apologetic smile on his perfect face.

"Steve," she confirms. She unlocks the door and slips outside, the taste of acrid bile on her tongue.

* * *

Up on the roof, she can understand why Bucky decided to seek solitude here his first full day in the building. The city below breathes. Cars whizz down one-way streets too fast as pedestrians pay no heed to crossing signals. Everybody takes their lives into their own hands when they step out of their homes. Not enough vehicles have their headlights on. The rain may have stopped, but there is still significant cloud coverage. Through the haze of humidity and fog, Darcy can hardly see the traffic lights. No wonder so many people feel it necessary to press down on their horns.

Wow, she is bad at distracting herself. Traffic and the weather are not good tools to keep her mind from trying to guess the conversation taking place in her apartment that very moment. Fifteen minutes have past since she left the old buddies. She takes it as a good sign that no one has been thrown through any windows yet. But the day is still young.

What could Captain America (Steve! He asked her to call him  _Steve_ , like they're equals) be saying to Bucky to get the ex-HYDRA weapon to leave? In all fairness, it makes complete sense. She can't very well keep him locked in her pocket-sized apartment for the rest of time. He isn't some zoo animal, and he has spent enough of his life in a cage being treated like one. So, she understands. He needs to get out of there. Out of her apartment, out of DC, out of the western hemisphere.

But she doesn't want him to go.

Darcy, arms resting on the damp stone wall blocking her from falling to the busy street below, lowers her head onto her folded arms. Her long hair is picked up by the breeze and she can feel the wind trying to pull the strands from her head. Closing her eyes, she tries to rationalise her feelings. Bucky opened up to her, first off. He spilled long-forgotten secrets in their sessions together and allowed her access to the deep recesses of his warped mind. He came with her when she offered him a place to stay, and he didn't even know her then. Sure, she had reason to be wary of him, but she could have been working for the wrong people. He trusted her, just as she trusted him, from the moment they first met. And he wants to protect her. He has been saying it since she found him here and told him about the exposé. Nobody has ever been so desperate to ensure her safety that they jeopardised their own. Then those eyes. Everything about those sad, caring eyes twist and turn every thought in Darcy's head. She can't let those eyes go out into the world again. They've seen too much already.

How selfish of her. They will both die if she is in charge of his whereabouts.

A clap of thunder lifts Darcy's head. Darkness moves over the apartment building. Lightning scratches the clouds, cracking like a golden whip through the blackening sky. Behind her, the door to the roof opens and she turns to see Bucky making his way towards her. His hair blows over his face as the wind picks up speed. He still is naked from the waist up.

"I have to go," he says upon reaching her. He grabs her hands, his face grim.

"Now?"

Bucky shakes his head. Lightning strikes above them and thunder, jealous of his brother's beauty, roars loudly in response. "Tomorrow. Steve will be watching, though, in case that has to change. He thinks keeping me here for one more day is a good idea. Most of the people looking for me probably aren't expecting me to stick around. And he's going to make sure, after I leave, that I'm spotted somewhere far away so no one suspects you've been hiding me. He'll make sure you're safe. I'm sorry, Darcy," he says following a brief pause. There is a small tremor in his deep voice. "I wish I didn't have to go."

"I wish that too," she says, gripping his hands tighter. Look at her, admitting to a reformed killer she wants him to stay. The rain has started up again. It drips over them. Gently at first, but Darcy knows a torrent will reach them soon. "I wish a lot of things, actually."

"Oh, yeah?" he says. There is the slightest air of teasing in his words, but it is almost completely canceled out by overpowering melancholy. "What kinds of things?"

"Crazy things," she admits. She should bite her tongue, but she  _can't help herself_. "I wish we were different people. I wish this was a different world. I wish you had just been some guy I met at the Lincoln Memorial, and I wish there was nothing stopping us from . . . well, from anything."

The rain is coming down harder now. It feels like bullets bouncing off her skin. Her hair glues itself to her face. Before her, Bucky's figure becomes a blur.

Bucky, his metal arm glowing in the rain, releases her hands and moves his own to her face. He holds her cheeks, moving her thick, heavy hair out of her eyes. Desperation and longing flicker in his stare. "Let's pretend, then," he says. "Tonight, let's pretend we're different people. We met at the Lincoln Memorial. I'm a war vet, you're a journalist. Nothing else matters—nothing else even exists."

A gargled laugh trickles out of Darcy. She latches on to his wrists. Bucky's pulse races against her left thumb. "And tomorrow? When you leave? What am I supposed to do after that?"

"I  _will_  come back. I swear it," he vows.

Darcy's heart creeps into her throat. She nods, hoping the movement is enough to convey her agreement to Bucky's plan. He nods too. A violent motion as his fingers clutch the back of her head. His fingers tangle in her wet hair. Her knuckles press against her own chin, but she can't feel anything. Not the cold rain lashing her face, not the metal held in her right hand.

No, that's a lie. She feels something. Bucky's breath seeping through parted mouth.

The press of his bare torso against her soaked top.

His barely-there kiss on the corner of her mouth.

His lips twitching, bearing down on hers.

He is real after all. There is so much warmth inside of his mouth. His tongue is fire sweeping against her own.

It is her idea to go into the building again. Away from the storm, hidden in her dark apartment, they move like phantoms, the sound of the harsh rain attacking her window enough to drown out any fears that dare waft through their minds.


	6. Guys and Darcy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday, guys. 
> 
> I just want to say a quick thank you to you all for your continued love and support. It really does keep me going.

The newsroom is disturbingly quiet save for the comforting noise of fingers on keyboards as Darcy leaves the conference room, her new assignment in hand. It is her first day back, and her asshole boss has given her a real doozy. A New York politician, who was hoping to run for president at the next election, was found yesterday in his hotel room with a lady of the night. Turns out he had been using his funds to keep up his habit of sleeping with women who were not his loving wife. Who, luck would have it, is currently eight months pregnant with their first child.

Claps all around.

 _Men_ , Darcy thinks bitterly to herself as she heads for the glass-walled break room. Its windows overlook the street below, and there are dozens of protestors on the sidewalk, chanting something about liberal scum.

She is meant to get phone interviews with those who know the politician. Friends, colleagues. His wife, if she gets lucky and is able to convince the cuckolded woman she is anyone other than a journalist trying to get dirt for a story.

Darcy enters the empty break room and goes over to the counter with all of the tea supplies, past the humming refrigerator and bowl of untouched, bruised fruit. In the office, she is careful with her caffeine intake. She once consumed five cups of coffee in a one hour period and spent the rest of the work day with heart palpitations. She couldn't even type on her keyboard; her hands were shaking too much. Lemon and ginger tea is what she needs at the moment. Something soothing and naturally caffeine-free. She fills the electric kettle with tap water and switches on the machine, skimming writing in the tea packet.

After a second, she drops the packet on the countertop. The florescent lights in the room are giving her headache, and her blatant attempt to distract herself from the pain in her chest—that had nothing to do with an excess of coffee consumption—is not working. Her thoughts keep drifting back to the man with the bionic arm in her apartment. But maybe he isn't in her apartment anymore. They had talked the night before, as the rain clinked against the window in Darcy's room and they lay entwined on the bed, about him leaving. He got to stay through the night, and he was there when she woke up, and there when she kissed him goodbye, unsure if it was the last time she would get to see him. To smell him. To touch him.

Everything had changed once Steve left them. After dancing around each other, getting to know each other, confiding in each other, they finally gave into their foolish impulses. And now she has to say farewell to the Winter Soldier.

In a way, she hopes he has run already. Snuck down the fire escape on her floor, red hood over his tattered baseball cap, and fled. But mostly, selfishly, she hopes he will be there when she arrives home from work.

Darcy's eyes sting. She presses the palms of her hands against them and sucks in a deep, soothing breath. She cannot cry here. Hearing the kettle click off, she drops her hands and grabs her favourite mug— _Me? Sarcastic? Never_. She rips open the package holding the tea bag and places it in the cup, pouring the boiled water. The scent of ginger and lemon fills her nostrils. It helps relax her a little bit more, and she cleans up the mess she made with her bottom lip trembling only slightly.

Taking the tea bag out after enough time has passed, Darcy tosses it in the trash and turns to leave the break room.

"Darcy!"

The young journalist comes to a startled halt. Her drink splashes out, dousing her dark grey blouse and black, slim trousers in boiling liquid.

Rob stands in the doorway to the break room, eyes wide at Darcy's reaction to his voice. "Sorry," he says, running to the sink. Grabbing some paper towels, he hands them to her. "I've been hoping to talk to you all morning. I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's fine," she sighs. It makes perfect sense that this would happen to her. Taking the towels, Darcy mops up the mess on her clothes and goes back to the counter to grab some more boiled water and another bag. She senses Rob directly behind her as she dumps out the small amount of tea left in her mug. She wishes he would leave her alone. "What do you want, Rob?"

He comes to stand next to her at the counter and reaches for the kettle. "I just wanted to know how your top secret assignment went. I missed you this past week."

In spite of herself, Darcy freezes, tea bag in hand. She looks at Rob out the corner of her eye. His blue eyes are curious. He smiles, showing off crooked teeth.

 _Relax, Darcy. He's harmless_ , she tells herself.

Darcy moves her shoulders up and down. She puts the bag in her mug, allowing Rob to douse it in water.

"It wasn't that exciting," she says, hoping to God her voice sounds normal. "Just another article. It was pretty boring, actually."

The kettle clicks back into its holder. Rob, leaning back against the countertop, looks at her skeptically. His blond eyebrows waggle. "What was it on, your article? I didn't see your name in the mockup. And it wasn't online. I mean, there was that one anonymous article, but everyone keeps telling me it was a freelancer that wrote it."

Darcy's throat burns. She can hardly swallow. Chucking the fresh tea bag in the bin, she doesn't dare look at Rob, choosing instead to stare out the window at the protestors.

Since he started working at the  _Post_  three months ago, Rob had followed her around like a puppy dog. She had always assumed it was just because this was his first job out of school and Darcy was the person assigned to show him around the office on his first day. Maybe he had imprinted on her or something.

But there is a strange tone to his words. There is something . . . twisted about the way he speaks. Something  _sinister_.

"You didn't write the Winter Soldier article, did you, Darcy?"

Rob's voice is against her ear. She jerks away, smacking him with her hair. Her pulse thrashes in her neck.

 _Remain calm_.  _Do not reveal yourself_.

Darcy splutters out a laugh and swats Rob's clothed arm. "Of course I didn't write that article. Could you imagine me sitting down with a . . . with a murderer? I'm not brave enough for that."

"Yeah, of course," Rob says, laughing as well. "I didn't think you'd written it. Not really. I can't believe someone did, though."

"Can't believe someone did what?"

The blue in Rob's eyes shifts, darkening. "I can't believe someone sat down the Winter Soldier. Like you said, he's a murderer. And a traitor. A murderous traitor. I'd shoot him if I ever got within range."

Darcy bites her tongue until she feels her teeth sink in. Blood coats her tastebuds.

She can't blame Rob for saying those things. She is positive that although her article aimed to reveal the light inside of the former HYDRA weapon, some people will always see him as that guy with the metal Communist arm who almost killed Captain America. But it angers her to hear such bitter, ill-informed words be spoken about Bucky when she is the only person, aside from Steve Rogers, to truly know how good he is. How redeemed and gentle and  _loving_  he is. If he took her article at face value, Rob would know too, even if in a diluted form.

"Right," Darcy grits, taking her mug, stuffing her notepad in her back pocket, and turning on her heel. She points over her shoulder with her free hand. "I gotta go start on this article."

Rob's fingers clap against the countertop. "You didn't tell me what your secret article was about."

"Nothing important," she says.

She exits the room and half-runs to her desk. Sitting down, she exhales, her breath falling out in a rush, having held it in the entire way to her wall-less cubicle.

That was a weird conversation. Darcy flips through the notes from her meeting with the boss man, not really paying attention. Her mind is too focused on Rob. She watches the back of his body as he makes his way to his own desk at the end of the hall. Thankfully, they do not face each other, and she doesn't have to worry about him watching her.

Why was he interested in her assignment? And bringing up the Winter Soldier out of the blue like that?

Again . . .  _weird_.

Darcy shakes out her fingers and opens a browser on her computer, choosing to tuck away her strange encounter with Rob and focus on her new article. Researching a scumbag is always oddly therapeutic for her and soon she is too wrapped up in her assignment to worry about her blond-headed coworker.

* * *

Her hand is cramping. She scribbles as fast as she can on her notepad, but the woman talking on the phone to her is going a mile a minute. Her brain cannot keep up. The majority of the words she is writing look like endless, illegible loops. Basically, she will be lucky if she understands any of it come tomorrow morning.

It might not matter, though. She is on the phone to her perp's mother-in-law, and she could be telling Darcy a load of rubbish facts about her daughter's soon-to-be ex-husband out of frustration and an underlying need to get back at him for being such a sleaze.

"So, you always had a feeling he would do something like this?" Darcy asks, holding back a yawn. She checks the time on her laptop screen.  _2:12 a.m_. God, this article is sucking the life out of her. Everyone else has already left.

"Well, yes. From the moment I first met him, he struck me as the unfaithful type."

"Okay. And what about finances."

"What about them?"

Darcy sits up. Dropping her pen, she stretches her fingers and leans back against the head of her chair. The woman's cluelessness does not bode well. "I mean, when he started seeing your daughter, was he good with money? Did he ever ask you for some? Did you ever catch him rummaging through someone else's wallet?"

"Why is this important?"

Great. Darcy grabs her pen and puts the end of it in her mouth. "Look, Mrs. Klein, I know this guy has shattered your daughter's heart, but his crimes go beyond that of sleeping with escorts. He also stole money from his own campaign to fund an assortment of illegal activities. If it turns out this embezzlement stuff is new for him, it could be useful information. You know, maybe he hasn't always been a scumbag."

"But he has. I told you as much."

"Okay, but maybe he hasn't always been a thieving scumbag," Darcy allows.

"Are you on his side?" Mrs. Klein asks, affronted.

"God, no," Darcy hastily replies. "No. I am against him. Completely against him."

"Aren't you supposed to be neutral?"

Darcy wants badly to throw her phone across the room. The pen falls. "What do you want from me, Mrs. Klein? I'm just trying to write a fucking"—The instant the swear word is out of her mouth, the other line goes dead. Darcy hears crackling air from the ear piece. Mrs. Klein has hung up. "Fuck!" Darcy shouts the expletive into the empty office, slamming the phone down.

She could cry. She won't, but she could. She is so wound, like a slinky—she needs someone to roll her down a staircase.

And it has nothing to do with the fucking article about the fucking scumbag.

Bucky is probably gone. He should be, at least. Middle of the night on a Monday. Perfect escape, especially with Steve watching over him. Making sure he gets out of DC without a scratch.

"Darcy, is everything okay?"

Darcy almost falls backwards out of her chair. Rob's blond head pokes out of the archives room at the end of the hall. He steps out and walks towards her, his right hand behind his back.

The brunette nods, though she swears her heart fell out of her chest and is sprawled somewhere on the floor. "Yeah, I'm fine," she lies, looking skeptically at her coworker. "What are you still doing here? I thought you'd have gone home by now."

Rob reaches her. His right hand remains hidden. "I wanted to look through some stuff. Our talk earlier about the Winter Soldier got me curious."

Something is not right with this picture. Darcy senses danger. She straightens, feigning a small smile. "What did you find out?"

Rob's thin lips stretch into an uncomfortable grin. He shrugs. "Oh, nothing too exciting. Stuff you probably already know."

Adrenaline seeps steadily into Darcy's blood. "Try me."

She should not have said it. She should have denied knowing anything about the Winter Soldier. She should have run.

She should have whacked him over the head with her phone,  _then_  run.

A glimmer of excitement flashes in Rob's blue eyes, and Darcy instantly knows she has found herself in a bad situation.

Rob's right arm straightens. He lifts his hand. In it, held so comfortably, a gun. Grey and small, the weapon shimmers in the dim office lighting.

He knows. He  _must_.

She cannot stop herself. She gasps. Her pupils expand at the sight of the thing and she frowns at Rob. "Are you going to kill me?" she asks, surprised by how calm and steady her voice is. Internally, she is screaming.

"Not if I can help it," he says.

"Then what's with the gun?"

Rob looks at the revolver. He cocks it, shrugging. "It's supposed to intimidate you. I'm supposed to hold this against your back, and you're supposed to lead me to the Winter Soldier."

"I don't know"—

—" _Don't_  lie to me, Darcy!" he says sharply, deliberately pointing the gun at her. "I'm the one who told our boss about your involvement with SHIElD. I'm the one who saw you follow that . . . that  _thing_ up to the Lincoln Memorial.  _I'm the one_  who saw you walk away with him! I have all the cards, Darcy Lewis."

The realisation smacks her in the gut. "You're HYDRA," she says, dumbfounded.

" _Richtig_ , Darcy.  _Gut gemacht_." The German words go over Darcy's head, but she knows enough to understand his decision to speak his native language. This man is a Nazi, and he wants her to be frightened. "And you've been very helpful. To think, if you hadn't found the Soldier that day out of pure luck, we would still be searching for him."

"You want me to take you to him?" she asks. Her insides are exploding. She is praying to each and every deity she can think of, hoping Bucky has not been an idiot and stuck around in her apartment.

God, why the fuck did she take him to her apartment? Thinking back, it was not a smart move. She should have brought him somewhere safe. Somewhere hidden and inconspicuous. And he should have known better than to follow her there. She supposes both of their judgements had been impaired that day, though. Hers by the tiredness in Bucky's eyes; his by . . . what exactly? A combination of things. Exhaustion, fear, her outrageous good looks. . . .

 _Not the time, Darcy_.

"I want you to take me to him," Rob affirms, the gun's barrel in Darcy's eye line. He waves the revolver and orders her to get up. There is a distinct accent to his words now he doesn't have to pretend to be American.

"Earlier," Darcy says, getting to her feet and grabbing her bag, "when you called him a murderous traitor?"

Rob gets behind her. The gun digs into Darcy's back. Even through her clothes, she feels its power. Her bones rattle as Rob starts moving them towards the elevator.

"I meant he is a traitor of HYDRA," Rob says, confirming her suspicions.

Darcy tries her hardest to keep her breathing steady as the elevator doors spring open. The gun still burning a hole against her blouse, Rob shoves her inside. Her heels clank on the metal floor as she stumbles, but she rights herself the moment Rob's sickening laughter reaches her.

"You like him, don't you?" he asks. The elevator doors close, and Darcy knows now there is no chance for escape.

And SHEILD even offered her self defence training, but she turned them down, wanting to break her ties with the organisation too badly.

If only she knew then how closely the world of superheroes and super villains would follow her.

"You like the monster," he tries again.

Darcy takes the bait. "He isn't a monster."

Rob chuckles like only the evil can. "You have not seen him transform into the Winter Soldier."

 _Shit_.  _Fuck_!

"Is that what you're going to do when you find him?"

"It will make extraction much easier."

The elevator nears the ground level. Darcy is running out of time.

Not that she had time in the first place.

"Why is it only you?" she asks. "Why don't you have a thousand and one other agents helping?"

The gun presses deeper into her spine. She winces, catching a pained noise just in time before it leaks out of her mouth.

Rob grits his teeth. "They do not think I will succeed in capturing him. They left me to do this on my own."

The elevator dings, announcing their arrival at the ground floor. Rob pushes her out when the doors open. They reach the building's main exit and step outside into the cool DC night. Above them, rare stars peak through misty clouds. The moon casts shadows upon the ground.

"Which way?"

Darcy's skin tightens. She looks both directions, wondering if she should send Rob on a wild goose chase.

It would mean death for her, surely, but safety for Bucky if he has yet to leave.

But he has to have gone by now. He wouldn't risk his life and stick around. Steve wouldn't allow that.

Darcy makes her decision. She starts walking towards her apartment building, the cocked revolver against her back.

* * *

Rob's tongue smacks disapprovingly as they reach her floor. "Your apartment, Darcy?" he says, disappointed. "Have you not seen enough crime films to know that hiding the bad guy in your apartment never ends well?"

They are at her door. Darcy's keys are in her hands, and she struggles to find the correct one. Behind her, Rob shoves the revolver further into her spine. "You know," she says, fingers shaking as she locates her door key, "he probably isn't even in here. He likes to roam at night."

"A true predator."

"Yeah, something like that."

Bucky does not roam the DC streets at night. But if he is in there, he will hear her and know there is something amiss. He will be in attack mode.

And if he isn't there, Darcy will most likely die. She concluded that on the walk over here. Rob will shoot her out of anger and she will die, bleeding out on the floor of her shitty apartment.

The key rotates in the locks on her door. She grabs the knob, twisting until she hears it click open. It creaks, and Rob pushes her through, his hot breath brushing the back of her neck. The door slams shut behind them. Darcy flinches at the harsh noise, glancing erratically around the apartment. Her eyes catch a shadow near the DVD shelf. She blinks and the shadow disappears.

Bucky.

He is still here.

 _Why is he still here_?

"Look," she says. She can feel her skin start to prickle. Her tongue dries, taking on the feel of rough wood. Her heart is ready to take flight. "I don't think he's stuck around."

Rob grabs her shoulder and thrusts the gun into her back. "Shut up," he says, "or I'll shoot you right here, right now."

Okay. So he lied.

Darcy had seen that one coming.

Rob turns their bodies around, surveying the quiet apartment. He stops when they face her bedroom and starts guiding Darcy towards the room.

 _Bide time, Darce_.  _Stall_!

"I thought you said you weren't going to do that."

"Turn the light on," he instructs. Darcy does as she is asked. The room comes alive, and there is no visible sign that she has been sharing this space with anyone. It is clean. "Of course I can't let you live, Darcy. You know too much. I was hoping it would be the Winter Soldier who would do the shooting, but if you're right and he isn't here . . . I guess I'll have to pick up the slack."

Rob decides there is nothing suspicious about the bedroom. He bends to look under the bed, straightens, points the gun at Darcy's back once more, and walks them out into the lounge.

This doesn't feel real. It feels like some dream, or some out of body experience. Darcy's entire body is vibrating with fear, and it's as if the sheer force of the buzzing has expelled her soul from its confines. She is watching the scene unfold from a different angle. Watching as Rob—who she never trusted to begin with, but for completely different reasons—moves her towards the window near the television. And to her left, in the bathroom, she hears a noise. A soft noise. She turns her head, only she doesn't turn her head, and knows Bucky is in there. Hiding. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

This is going to end badly. It is going to end in bloodshed. There is a revolver piercing her spine. There is a reformed assassin in her toilet. A not-reformed assassin in possession of key words that can transform her reformed assassin into a not-reformed assassin breathes against her ear.

"I hate this city," Rob says bitterly. Without giving Darcy a chance to defend DC, he speaks again, "I read your article."

Darcy returns to her body, snapping back into place. "I figured," she says.  _Stupid Darcy. We do not taunt men with fucking guns_! She swallows splinters. "What did you think?"

The agent smiles. Darcy sees it in the window's reflection, and it makes her want to gag.

"You reveal too much of yourself in your writing, I'm afraid."

"Do tell." Darcy fights to keep her voice level. She fights to stop herself from peeking behind her left shoulder at the bathroom. Focusing on the blinking red lights, indicating an all-way stop, at the end of the street, she works hard at steadying her breathing.

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it?" Rob's smile widens. His teeth in the window look jagged like a shark's. "You've fallen for the Winter Soldier. You think he is saved.  _You think_ he is on your side. Darcy, my dear, it's pathetic."

It isn't. She knows—really, really knows—it isn't. Bucky is good. He has always been good. It's the Winter Soldier who is bad, and Bucky has been battling against that side of him for longer than anyone else on the planet could have.

And of course she fell for him. The Universe could not put Darcy and a sad, puppy-dog-eyed guy like Bucky Barnes in the same room and expect her  _not_  to fall for him. As bad as the idea sounded at the start, she quickly learned to accept it.

"Yeah, well," she says, "you're the one who's on his own for this mission because your bosses don't believe in you. So, who's the pathetic one, really?"

"Bad move," Rob snarls.

The gun is no longer against her back. In the reflection, Darcy sees Rob's right hand lift above his head.

He is going to pistol-whip her. With a revolver.

She prepares for impact—scrunched eyes, balled fists, breath held—but a voice coming from the left forces her eyes open.

"Let her go."

Darcy exhales in a whoosh, her breath fogging the glass. She and Rob turn their heads in unison as a silhouette emerges from the bathroom. Rob is immediately on the defensive. He grabs ahold of Darcy and presses her to him, his arm around her neck. The other, the one holding the gun, presses into her head, and he whirls their bodies around to face the Winter Soldier.

A revolver aligned with her temple, Darcy drinks in the sight of Bucky. He wears the clothes she found him in. His backpack is by his feet. His hair cloaks his stubbled face.

"I knew he was here!" Rob exclaims, ramming the muzzle hard into Darcy's skull. "I just knew it."

"Let her go," he says again, menacing.

Rob laughs, the noise crazed. "No, no, no, no. She's my leverage. One wrong move, and I shoot." He laughs again, shuffling Darcy to the side until they are directly in front of Bucky. "I thought this was going to be so much harder. I got a job working at the  _Post_ in the hopes I would be the first to know if you were sighted, but never did I think Miss Lewis here would be the one to find you for me! I mean, one minute we were eating lunch together, the next she was climbing up to see Lincoln. Only she wasn't, and you had better believe I almost shot you  _right there_  when I came to get Darcy."

Behind her, Rob sniffs. Sweat from his skin drips on the back of her neck.

"But I couldn't just shoot you. I still can't just shoot you. I'm going to take you in,  _soldat_."

Darcy watches Bucky tense as soon as Rob says the word. Illuminated by the moon and the light from her bedroom, she sees his jaw twitch.

He shakes his head. "No."

"Yes," Rob grits. "The Winter Soldier will be reborn tonight. And do you want to know what your first task is?" When Bucky doesn't make a sound, Rob sighs and grips Darcy tighter. "You're gonna have to shoot your girlfriend. It'll be so much fun."

In her panicked state, Darcy searches desperately for Bucky's eyes. They are hidden partially by his hair, but she continues staring at his face, continues begging him in her mind to look at her, and for one moment, a flash in time, their eyes meet. His look tells her a thousand things. There is pain, distress, a hint of comfort, like he is telling her everything is going to be fine.

She doesn't believe him.

" _Zhelaniye_." And it begins. Bucky flinches, rolling his neck. " _Rzhavvy_."

" _No_ ," Bucky groans, the veins in his throat bulging. "Stop!"

Rob sways a bit with excitement, causing Darcy to stagger in her heels. She reclaims her footing, an idea bursting inside her head.

" _Semnadtsat_ ," Rob says as Bucky's knees start wobbling with the effort of trying to keep the Winter Soldier at bay.

 _Now, Darcy_.

Sucking in a quick breath, Darcy lifts her left foot and slams her spiked heel down. An ear-splitting scream rips out of Rob as her shoe goes through his Sperry and into his foot. He releases her, and she falls forward, her heel still stuck inside of Rob. The gun in his hand drops to the floor, thankfully not going off, as he stumbles backwards.

Bucky is quick. From her spot on the ground near the DVD shelf, she watches him stalk towards Rob. The German—the fucking  _Nazi_ —holds up his hands in surrender.

"Don't hurt me. Please," Rob begs.

She cannot see Bucky's face, but she can imagine how disgusted he must look. How angry.

"You coward," he condemns. "You filthy coward."

The last thing Darcy hears out of Rob's mouth:  _Hail HYDRA_.

Then there is a crack, and then there is silence.

She shivers against her DVD collection, looking up at the former assassin as he nears her. He reaches down to her with his proper hand. She removes her other shoe and takes it, revelling in his warmth. They are both quaking. He pulls her up and into his arms. Holding him tight, she buries her face in his chest, breathing his scent in. She cries into his jacket. He cries into her hair.

"I'm sorry," he says, strained. "This is all my fault."

"It's their fault," she insists. "They did this to you. They forced your hand."

"I killed him, Darcy."

She retreats, unravelling herself from his arms. Reaching up, she takes ahold of his rough face. Wetness meets her palms and she splays her fingers in his hair, moving the thick strands out of his eyes.

Finally. Her heart crumbles under his gaze. An old man trapped in the 21st century. There is such weariness to him.

"Hey," she says, her mouth full of tears and saliva, "he was going to make you kill me. You're not Batman. You're allowed to kill the bad guys. Especially when they're threatening someone as hot and irreplaceable as me."

Bucky gives her a look. He is caught between a laugh and a grimace.

"Sorry, dark humour is my response to stressful situations."

"You must never be relaxed."

Darcy smiles carefully. "Look who's cracking jokes now."

She tugs firmly on his neck, bringing his lips to hers.

After a minute spent attempting to regain their composure, they call Steve into the apartment. He had been hiding on the roof in his Cap gear.

He says what Darcy knew he was going to say. Bucky has to leave.  _Now_. He will deal with the dead Nazi and any neighbours with any questions. But Bucky has to run. And he can't come back.

"I'll take him up to the roof for now," Steve says, and Darcy has a feeling he is trying to give them a chance to say goodbye. "I'll get rid of him and any evidence when you've left."

Bucky agrees, and Steve, as quietly as he can manage, removes Darcy's stiletto, lifts the HYDRA agent over his shoulder and exits the apartment. Darcy and Bucky are alone.

She feels empty. Lost. It may have not even been two weeks since she invited this man into her home, but she has grown attached. He shared his life with her, and she shared her (much less bloody) life with him, and they found peace with one another. They found comfort.

She doesn't want to let him go.

She says it, her lips wobbling. "I don't want you to go."

Now it is Bucky's turn to take her face in his hands. She doesn't feel the mechanical fingers. All she feels is him rubbing circles on her hot cheeks. She grabs at his wrists and he smiles a sad sort of smile.

They looked like this the night before up on the roof, rain splashing over them.

They were sad then, too. Only tonight there is a finality in the air that takes ahold of Darcy's throat and forbids her from speaking.

"This isn't the end," he says firmly, bringing their foreheads together.

Darcy breathes in the air from his lungs. She closes her eyes, blocking out everything that isn't Bucky. "Isn't it, though? It seems like such a perfect ending."

"I swore to you I would come back. I meant it." His fingers lace through her hair. "I can't thank you enough, Darcy Lewis, for finding me that day."

Darcy doesn't like this talking. She  _hates_  it.

Moving her arms to Bucky's waist, she wraps them around him and blindly searches for his mouth. He is unresponsive for only a second. Once that moment has passed, he is sucking hard on her bottom lip as if he is trying to consume her, pushing her back until her head meets the cool glass of the window. He holds her there, his fingers slipping beneath the hem of her blouse. She feels the metal now. It pinches her skin. Goosebumps burst over her arms and torso, and she shudders in Bucky's embrace.

They separate only when they hear Steve's hand on the doorknob. He looks at them solemnly, ignoring their disheveled appearance. He approaches the pair.

"It's been good seeing you, Buck," Steve says, offering the dark haired man a hand.

Bucky shoves it away. He hugs the Avenger instead. "You too, Steve," he says, breaking away. "And thank you for all of your help."

Turning towards her, Bucky takes her in his arms one last time and kisses her.

 _This is goodbye_ , she thinks, desperately working to memorise the feel of his lips on hers.

* * *

 

He is gone.

Darcy sits on the sofa with Captain America, contemplating whether or not this entire part of her life has been a side effect of a bad acid trip, or perhaps a super realistic VR experience.

"He told me he'd come back," she says, not bothering to hide her tear-stained face. "He was lying, wasn't he? Like you said, he can't ever come back."

Steve looks over at her and offers her a warm smile. "Not for a long time," he says. "You love him, don't you."

She shrugs. "He's not first choice, but yeah. I do."

Why didn't she tell him before he left?

What was stopping her?

"He loves you too," Steve divulges. "And if I know one thing, it is that people who love each other often find their paths crossing when they least expect it."

She collapses after that, and Steve holds her as she cries more than she has ever cried over a boy in her life. Only he isn't just a boy. He is so much more than just a boy. He is the Winter Soldier. He is a warrior. A man among men. He is kind, and he is sad, and he is hers.

He is Bucky Barnes, and he loves her. And she loves him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Russian words that trigger the Winter Soldier are written phonetically. The German words used are simply "correct" and "good job." (At least that's what I found online. Sorry if I'm not right. I only speak very small amounts of Spanish.)
> 
> Alright, everyone. One more to go.


	7. Love Never Dies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy, guys.
> 
> Thanks a million times over for sticking around with me this long.

Darcy hates Virginia in the wintertime. She hates it more than she hates DC in the wintertime. Somehow, down in the southern portion of the state outside of Charlottesville, the weather seemed caught between cold and hot. There was a chill to the air, but that air felt thick and heavy. At least up where she lives it’s just plain cold. She may dislike the frigid temperatures, but she appreciates the consistency.

Sitting on a collapsable chair in a field off of a dirt road—because that is where they hold press conferences in this town apparently—Darcy shivers, her pen dragging a streaky line of black ink on her notepad. She frustratedly sighs and sits back in the uncomfortable chair, stretching her aching back muscles. She has been crouched for twenty minutes jotting down ideas for her article. It is doing wonders for her already-screwed-up spine, which has been a mess since puberty decided to grace her with a chest five sizes too big for her small stature. Curse Grandma Lewis and her horrendous genetic makeup.

Another breeze flows through the sticky air. Darcy is on the verge of giving up and heading back to her motel. Usually, when she is tasked with out-of-state assignments, she is fine with that plan. But her motel sucks. Her room is tiny, smells like the gross combination of old milk and sweat, and the shower runs either freeze-your-blood cold or melt-your-skin-off hot. And she is pretty sure the man behind the till is a murderer. Or a rapist. Or both. He stares after Darcy whenever she enters the shabby, apricot-painted building. Also when she leaves. His grey eyes are very off putting.

She looks up at the podium, bringing the hand that holds her pen up to shield her sensitive eyes from the blaring sun. A few other reporters are still here. Maybe they are all staying at her motel. Or maybe all of the accommodations down here are as bad as the one she got stuck with. Her boss called her after she arrived last night to apologise for the setup. It was such a last-minute story that he didn’t have time to find her anything else.

Darcy doesn’t believe him. She thinks it’s payback for that time she refused to go out on a date with him. Which is ridiculous, because it’s his own fucking rule that coworkers can’t date.

 _But we’re not coworkers, Darcy_ , he had said.

She had been incredibly tempted to say she was working with HR and every other one of her female coworkers to get him fired when he said that, but she held her tongue. The pleasure of seeing him dragged out of the office sooner rather than later will be satisfaction enough.

“You look miserable.”

Darcy jolts. Her hand drops to her lap and she looks to her right. A tall man, dressed in an expensive-looking dark blue, pinstripe suit and a deep brown hat—a _hat_ , like this is 1950s Hollywood and not a town in southern Virginia in the year 2018—approached and sat two seats down from her. He tilted his hat in greeting.

Had Tony Stark invented time travel and not told anyone?

Probably. . .

Darcy nodded towards him. “Did my general look of misery give it away?”

The man laughed. Crossing one leg over the other at the knee, he folded his hands and smiled at her. “I’m Richard West from the _Vancouver Sun_. Pleased to meet you.”

He held out a hand. His long arm extended right to Darcy over the two empty chairs. Wary, she took his hand and shook firmly once before releasing him.

“Darcy Lewis,” she said, lifting her press badge for him to see.

“ _Washington Post_.” Richard West sounded impressed. Pointing at the podium, he said, “What do you make of this mess, then?” 

It was a funny story, actually. The newly-elected mayor of this town recently got arrested for several crimes, the most noteworthy being identity theft. Miles Parker, who had been parading around as Frederick Barter for years, was born in London, Ontario, Canada. At the age of fifteen he embarked upon a life of crime. He stole, he maimed a few people, he sold drugs and he used them too. Ten years later, with the police hot on his trail, he fled the country and wound up in Virginia. After living a relatively quiet existence here, he decided it would be a laugh to run for mayor. Of course, when one is a political figure, one is bound to have all of their dirty secrets revealed, and the case was no different for Mr. Parker.

A mess indeed. Darcy hadn’t been aware Canada was even capable of producing criminals in the first place. 

“It’s nothing like what we get up in DC, but it’s quite the scandal for such a little town,” she said. It really was, too. Journalists from all over had come to witness perhaps the craziest political uproar of the year.

“Agreed,” said Richard, his green, cat-like eyes moving from her face to her hidden breasts. That hat didn’t hide much, then. “Look, I’m only in town for one more night. How’d you like to go out for a drink with me?”

Darcy is instantly on edge. She grips her pen tight. Feels sweat build up on her palm.

She is not a social butterfly. In the past three years, she has only been asked out seven times—not including her boss’s creepy invitation to Martha’s Vineyard. But even still, the weeks having turned to months, and those pesky months turning into even peskier and painful years, she refused every single offer. Darcy even said no to that one guy from her Intro to Philosophy class freshman year she had bumped into randomly at the coffee shop near the office. Everyone had wanted him back then, including her.

He was tall and blond and his eyes were almost gold.

But as she was about to say yes, she _remembered_. And she felt so horrible and stupid and guilty, because how could she have _forgotten_ in the first place?

The _no_ fell out of her in a whisper, but she didn’t repeat herself when he asked what she had said. She simply walked out of the shop and took the rest of the day off. She spent it crying in her bed, all of the memories of that week—the week that changed the entire course of her existence, that showed her what beauty mankind has to offer when given the chance—bathing her mind until she was numb and unable to shed any more tears.

He left only one thing behind. Darcy keeps it stored behind her work clothes in her closet, locked in a box to which she has the only key. It’s safe in there and she never takes it out no matter how badly she wants to. Well, at first. That night, when her face was dry and her hiccups were dying down, she went to her closet and retrieved the baseball cap. The box must be airtight, because the frayed, worn fabric still held his scent.

With him, he took one of John’s old hats along with the rest of her ex’s clothes. He said he was going to dump them in the Potomac and let them be eaten by the bull sharks that brave the freshwater.

It was the last thing he said before he said _goodbye_ for the last time.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Darcy blinks. She feels a tear slither down her cheek with the motion. Clearing her throat, she swipes at the droplet and forces herself to smile apologetically at Richard. “I’m fine,” she lies, a heaviness weighing in her chest. It’s as if she can’t breathe anymore. As if the oxygen is depleting around them. “I can’t go out with you, though. Sorry.”

Richard shrugs. “Worth a shot,” he says, but he remains seated. Obviously he has more to say. He has started bouncing his leg. “I know who you are, by the way. You’re the woman who wrote that article about the Winter Soldier.”

“I am,” she states, not phased by his identification.

People come up to her a lot and say some variation of that. Her article was popular when it first came out, but especially popular after the destruction of the Avengers two years ago. That whole shebang brought up the question of the former assassin’s nature. Was he good, was he bad, was he evil, or was he some strange combination of all three. It was a rough few weeks when everyone wanted her take on the matter. She spent a lot of nights with the baseball cap during that time.

“You’re an excellent writer,” Richard commends. “I never thought I’d feel sorry for that guy, but you got me to sympathise with him. A lot, actually. I don’t think an article has ever changed my mind so severely.”

Another tear threatens its escape. Darcy pretends to adjust her glasses and gathers the annoying bastard on her thumb. “Wow. Thanks. I don’t think anyone’s ever said something like that about my writing before.”

The journalists spend the next half-hour chatting about various subjects involving the Avengers. She is careful not to let anything slip. Since Rob, she has been overly cautious whenever someone brings up the alien crimefighters, but Richard acts like any normal fan.

Darcy is able to keep herself from breaking down every time his name— _his_ , like she can’t even _think_ it—is mentioned.

When her goosebumps start feeling like they’ll never go away, and the sweat at her armpits starts to get uncomfortable, Darcy bids her new Canadian friend farewell. He apologises for asking her on a date, and she isn’t sure if that’s commendable or another jackass move.

The walk to her motel isn’t a long one, but she is panting and the back of her black slim-fit trousers are covered in yellow dust when she passes the creeper at the front desk. She is immensely pleased her boss isn’t there to force her to wear heels.

After entering her mustard-painted, musk-scented room, Darcy throws her glasses on the bed, kicks her shoes off, and starts unbuttoning her white blouse before she senses something is off. Instantly, fear trickles through her bloodstream, followed soon by a rush of adrenaline. She reaches, quite blindly, for her glasses and surveys the room. Nothing appears out of place. The window is bolted shut. The stained sheet on the bed hasn’t been disturbed.

But then she hears it. A rustling. The noise is so slight and faint, but it’s there. It brushes against her eardrum and forces her to turn her head.

He stands by the window. He wasn’t there a moment ago—a _blink ago_ —but he is there now, like a phantom who just decided to reveal himself to the living. Dressed in average clothes, jeans and a t-shirt, he is unmoving in the blinding light of the setting sun.

“ _Bucky_ ,” she rasps. All of the air in her lungs, all of the air in the entire world, disappears. Her heart bashes against her ribs. Her veins suddenly constrict and the edges of her vision start blurring.

She is going to pass out. Her phantom seems to sense this too. He moves towards her. He maybe even says her name, though she cannot be certain. She feels herself falling backwards, but, of course, she isn’t falling for very long. As her mind blacks out and her eyes close, a heavy warmth invades her senses and stops her from hitting the gross motel carpet, and she is sure she has had this dream before.

*** * ***  


He is there when she opens her eyes. Perched at the end of the bed, facing the mirrored closet. Bucky Barnes watches her come awake.

His hair is long. Long _er_. It’s past his shoulders now. Instead of mere stubble, the lower half of his handsome face is covered in a thick beard. There are more lines marring his skin. Some are scars, some are the result of stress and anger. But his eyes are the same. Blue, attentive.

The metal arm is gone, but she knew it would be. Steve had been good to her and kept her updated on everything he could before he had to cut off communication with her. When Bucky’s name started popping up again in connection to the murder of the Wakandan king, Steve called the burner he gave her the night Bucky left and explained what was happening.

[ _She runs into the bathroom and locks the door. White spots appear on the wall in front of her. Closing her eyes, she takes in stuttered breaths and opens the ancient-looking mobile. She presses the green phone symbol. Holds the object to her ear._

_“Steve,” she chokes._

_“It wasn’t him, Darcy,” he says immediately. “I swear it wasn’t. They’ve got the wrong guy.”_

_All morning, Bucky’s face has been flashing on television screens across the world, the word_ SUSPECT _written beneath a zoomed-in still of him walking in an underground garage. They keep calling him the Winter Soldier. Like he doesn’t have a name._

_Darcy has been at work trying to keep it together, but hearing Steve’s voice has sent her sliding down the bathroom door to the floor. She is crumbling. Soon enough, she will be in so many pieces she won’t be able to mend herself in time for the day’s mandatory lunch meeting._

_“I think I know where he is,” he says._

_Darcy nods before she remembers Steve can’t actually see her. “Okay,” she says, saliva sticking to her lips in lines as her mouth parts. She rubs at her eyes. “Why is this happening to him, Steve?”_

_There is no answer for a few agonising seconds. Darcy hears Captain America’s strained breaths._

_“I . . . I don’t know. Maybe someone’s got a vendetta against him? Maybe he’s just the easiest target. I’ll find that part out later. In the meantime, Darcy, don’t worry. Sam and I are going to find him and we’re going to help him. Okay?”_

_She almost doesn’t believe him. That image they’re using of him—or not him; whoever the fuck it is parading around as him—keeps circulating in her head. She sees it on the wall in place of those white dots._

_But Bucky is not the Winter Soldier. Not anymore. HYDRA don’t control him like they used to. He is good, getting better all of the time. Everything will be okay as long as the rest of the world understands that._

_“Okay,” she says._

_“I’ve got to go. Stay strong, Darcy. I’ll keep him safe for you.”_

_She goes to her meeting with her heart sitting uncomfortably in her stomach. She doesn’t say anything until her name is called to discuss the hot political topics of the coming week, but even as she goes over her notes, she has to stop herself several times from saying Bucky’s name._ ]

He phoned again when the so-called Civil War was over to tell her he found Bucky a safe place, but he wouldn’t tell her where. Only that he was sleeping now and when he woke up he would be getting help from the locals. His rehabilitation had begun and she wasn’t there to witness it.

That was two years ago. Steve hadn’t called her since, which wasn’t surprising. He _was_ on the run from the entire US government. And probably a few other governments as well. The entire United Nations were waiting for him to come crawling on his knees to them, handcuffs already on, the Winter Soldier frothing at the mouth beside him.

Darcy lifts herself on her elbows and scoots backwards until she sits against the headboard. She can see how screwed up her hair looks in the mirror, but she is beyond caring about such trivial things.

“Steve told me you were here,” he says, quiet.

Darcy sucks in a broken gallon of air. She sounds like a small dog choking on a piece of bread. His voice runs to her. It settles against her skin. Sinks inside of her.

“How did he know where I was?” she asks, amazed she is able to form any coherent thought. Her mind is whirring like a ceiling fan going full speed.

“He knows everything.”

“He does seem to.”

 _Is this awkward_? she wonders to herself, panic rising. _It feels like it might be awkward_!

This is not how she imagined their reunion. For starters, she was not supposed to faint when she first saw him. But she had been thinking about him so much already that day with Richard bringing up the article and then he was _right there_ , and her mind, her body, could not take the shock.

Second, she had hoped to _know_ when they were going to find each other again. So she could prepare herself mentally and physically. In all of her fantasies, the Seaside Motel—which was nowhere near any body of water, let alone the sea—was not in any of them.

Maybe she had imagined that week with Bucky Barnes. Reworked all of their interactions to make it seem as though the heady romantic air between them was mutually felt.

No, that is a ridiculous thought. He would not be here at this horrifically disgusting motel, tempting the UN to barge through the single window in the room, just to catch up with a buddy.

Everything that week was real. All of the tears, the kisses. . .

All of it was real.

Bucky stands suddenly, startling Darcy so bad she can taste her kidneys. He draws nearer, drifting closer to her with his head downturned. His eyes never leave hers, as if he is afraid that looking away will cause her to disappear. 

She is properly shaking by the time he sits on the bed and angles himself towards her. The diminishing light streaming through the window the other side of the room shrouds him in a soft glow. Absently, Darcy reaches out to him. Her hand connects with his rough cheek. His eyes close, because feeling her is apparently even better than seeing her, and his haggard breaths soak through the palm of her hand.

 _Fuck this_ , she thinks. Darcy drops her hand and scrambles onto her knees. Before Bucky can open his eyes, or ask what is happening, she throws her arms around him and buries her face in his neck. If he is surprised by her attack, he doesn’t show it. Bucky pauses briefly, but soon his arm is clutching her waist so tight she can feel him touching her liver.

It’s like he’s sinking into her. Collapsing. She feels his lungs shake with every one of his staccato breaths.

“I love you,” she blurts. Escaping the curtain of his hair, she brushes strands away from his eyes, tucks them behind his ears, and says, “I should have told you before you left, but I didn’t. I—I don’t know why I didn’t.”

Bucky looks at her as if she has just spoken in a foreign language. His eyes are thin, his forehead creased. That line appears between his eyebrows. 

Shock, she realises. Disbelief as well, perhaps. 

He bows against her. Their foreheads connect. She grips the collar of his white shirt to stop herself from trembling. 

“I love you too.” He says the words slowly, like he’s feeling them out. Darcy’s eyes shut and she presses further into him. “I’ve missed you,” he adds. “So much. You have no idea how many times I thought about running back to DC.” 

Darcy laughs through her tears and opens her eyes. She lifts her head. Bucky’s blue eyes are like the ocean. Waves crash against his eyelashes. 

“I missed _you_ ,” she says. “But you’re here. We don’t have to miss each other anymore.”

They lie together on the bed, and it is as though the last three years melt away. He tells his side of the Civil War. Of his decision to go into the chamber to wait for a cure. Darcy listens intently as he explains how surprised he was when he woke up. He had expected to be under for decades. And he spoke of his healing. Of the Wakandan people who called him the White Wolf and helped him return to the man he once was. He praises Shuri, the Black Panther’s sister. He calls her the smartest person to have ever been born.

The sun is gone and the room is bathed in black when he finishes his story. Hers can wait for the coming morning. 

Darcy props herself on her elbow and leans forward, finding Bucky’s lips in the darkness. He responds immediately, holding her tight. His mouth opens. The warmth of his tongue ignites her skin. 

She pulls away, just for a moment. The moonlight washes his face in silver. He doesn’t say anything as she studies him. He only smiles. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And just like that, it's over! I thought it might never happen, but yesterday I was struck with inspiration and love for these two, so I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. 
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you to each and every one of you. If all you did was read, thank you. If you gave this story kudos, kudos to you! If you commented, bookmarked, subscribed, I am in awe of you! I have never gotten so much love for a story before in my life, and it makes me so happy that it is this story, with these characters! 
> 
> Really, thank you. I hope you all were able to keep up with the slight time jump. We're now caught up with the current period in the MCU. Bucky is healed and ready to fight with his Avenger buddies. And Darcy will be crossing her fingers he makes it out alive (and so will I!). 
> 
> Love to you all,
> 
> Bethany


End file.
